Abstract
The potential for antimicrobial use (AMU) to lead to the development of antimicrobial resistant bacteria is an increasingly important priority in human and veterinary medicine. Accurate AMU quantification is essential to assessing the risk of antimicrobial resistance due to AMU. The quantification of AMU in production animals can be difficult, and feedlot beef cattle present a number of unique challenges. This paper presents selected parenteral data from western Canadian beef feedlots to illustrate variations in interpretation of AMU that can arise from the use of different metrics and standards. Specific examples presented compare the number of animal daily doses calculated from a given amount of antimicrobial drug (AMD) using actual and estimated weights of cattle at exposure, dose-based to weight-based indicators representing the same amount of antimicrobial, dose-based AMU indicators using different estimated durations of effect (DOE), and AMU indicators calculated using different standard weights of cattle at exposure. Changing these factors when calculating AMU indicators can have notable influences on the results obtained. Transparency about the methods used to calculate AMU indicators is critical to ensure that comparisons of use among different populations is meaningful and accurate.
Highlights
The potential for antimicrobial use (AMU) to promote selection of antimicrobial resistant bacteria is a subject of increasing priority to stakeholders in public and animal health, policy making and international trade [1]
The daily doses (ADDkg) in mg/kg/day in the surveilled feedlots for each parenteral drug to which cattle were exposed were calculated by dividing the administered dose by the estimated exposure days represented by one standard treatment, or the durations of effect (DOE) [16]
The presented examples show that variations in the animal weight or antimicrobial DOE can potentially have a profound effect on calculated AMU indicators
Summary
The potential for antimicrobial use (AMU) to promote selection of antimicrobial resistant bacteria is a subject of increasing priority to stakeholders in public and animal health, policy making and international trade [1]. AMU in food-producing animals is under intensifying scrutiny because of potential public health risks putatively associated with contamination of the environment and food products with resistant bacteria [2,3,4] and direct transmission of resistant bacteria [5]. Use of antimicrobials for production purposes (e.g., growth promotion and feed efficiency) is limited in Canada and the United States to non-medically important antimicrobials, such as ionophores, and is restricted in Mexico [12,13,14]
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