COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF THE TURNOVER OF ANTIMICROBIAL VETERINARY MEDICINAL PRODUCTS IN UKRAINE AND EU MEMBER STATES

Abstract

Governments of many countries and professional organizations, including Ukraine, have developed a lot of legislative and regulatory documents and recommendations to tackle the development of acquired antimicrobial resistance, based on the of “One Health” concept. Monitoring the manifestation of acquired antimicrobial resistance and the circulation of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products is one of the keys to solving this problem.
 The main goal of this study was to determine the trends in the sales volumes of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products and compare them with the turnover of such products in the EU/EEA member states during 2021.
 Since 2015, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) has taken the lead to build a global interactive automated database on antimicrobial agents ANIMUSE to facilitate countries' reporting, analysis, and interpretation of data. In 2022, Ukraine, like other countries, for the first time submitted an annual sales volumes report of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products online to the global ANIMUSE database on the antimicrobials intended for use in animals (AMU).
 As a result of the sales volumes reports of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products analysis for 2021, common trends were revealed in Ukraine and EU/EEA member states regarding the circulation of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products of category D, in particular tetracyclines and penicillins. However, was established an increase in the sales share of aminoglycosides (7.93 %), polymyxins (8.5 %) and fluoroquinolones (10.4 %), and the 3rd and 4th generation cephalosporins (0.72 %) in Ukraine, which are classified as categories C and B, the use of which must be reasonable in the absence of alternatives from category D.
 Monitoring data of sales volumes does not allow us to assert that all of the sold antimicrobials were used during the reporting period, however, the increase in their share in sales volumes is worrisome following the requirements stated by the “Procedure for the use of antimicrobial veterinary medicinal products”, approved by order of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine No. 1177-21 of 12.30.2021.