Abstract
In the Swiss pig sector, the usage of antimicrobials has been recorded, evaluated and systematically reduced on a voluntary basis since 2015. This monitoring has been carried out using various methods thereby enabling continuous national scrutiny as well as international comparisons. To gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the antimicrobial usage on Swiss farms, consumption data of farrow-to-finish farms were analyzed for (i) the within-herd relationships among different age categories and (ii) the influence of the herd size. The data were collected on 71 farms for the year 2017, encompassing the amount of active ingredients and number of defined daily doses Switzerland (nDDDch) in total, and stratified for the different age categories of piglets, weaners, fattening pigs, and sows. The differences in nDDDch per animal among the age categories were determined by a Wilcoxon test and subsequent post-hoc analysis according to Bonferroni. The within-herd relationship among the individual age categories as well as the influence of the herd size on nDDDch per animal measured as kept sows were analyzed by simple linear regression. The evaluation of the treatment days showed that 50% of the nDDDch were used in piglets, 44% for weaners, and 3% each for fattening pigs and sows. Compared to the other age categories, the examination of the number of nDDDch per animal showed a significantly higher number for sows, whereas for fattening pigs the number was significantly lower (P < 0.01). The farm-based analysis using linear regression showed a relationship between antimicrobial usage in sows and piglets (P < 0.001; adj. R2 = 0.19). Similarly, a significant relationship between larger herd size and increased antimicrobial usage was observed (P = 0.02; adj. R2 = 0.06). The present study provides an insight into the antimicrobial treatment dynamics of farrow-to-finish farms. In particular, the age categories piglets and sows—with their higher number of treatment days in total or per animal—are of interest regarding the potential reduction in antimicrobial usage. Likewise, larger farms with higher management requirements were found to be of particular importance for the reduction of antimicrobial usage. Monitoring programs should therefore evaluate different age categories separately to identify problems for individual farms.
Highlights
Awareness of the spread of antimicrobial-resistant genes is an important issue at the public health interface between human and veterinary medicine [1]
The total and relative distribution of the antimicrobial consumption within different age categories measured as total amount of prescribed antimicrobial ingredient per farm and age category number of DDDch (nDDDch)/animal/year =
The relationship between the herd sizes and the nDDDch/animal/year on farms was examined by a simple linear regression
Summary
Awareness of the spread of antimicrobial-resistant genes is an important issue at the public health interface between human and veterinary medicine [1]. In addition to treatment guidelines, the first important step is setting up a powerful AMU monitoring system, which allows for correlations with resistance data [9] and is linked to animal performance and certain aspects of biosecurity and prevention [10,11,12,13] Such monitoring systems may be based on several different measurement methodologies, which, valid and reliable by themselves, could complicate comparisons among different regions and species [14]. An established and common monitoring strategy is based on the measurement of so-called defined daily doses, which allow for the estimation of the potential number of treatment days from the used amount of antimicrobial ingredients [15, 16] This measurement method, originally developed for human medicine [17], was adopted in veterinary medicine and examined in several studies monitoring the AMU in pigs [18, 19]. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) developed a detailed description for the assignment of defined daily doses and treatment course doses in animals [20], supplemented by values for defined daily doses (DDDvet) and defined course doses (DCDvet) for the livestock sector [21]
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