EU countries see success in slashing veterinary antibiotics sales

Sales of antibiotics used for animal use have almost halved between 2011-2021, according to a new report issued by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), putting the EU on track to attain its ambitions, but with a warning that the sector should not become complacent.

The agency’s annual report on the European surveillance of veterinary antimicrobial consumption (ESVAC) was released on Friday (18 November) and covers a total of 31 European countries, including 29 EU/EEA countries.

It found that, since 2011, European countries have “substantially reduced” sales of veterinary antibiotics in animals. 

For the 25 countries that provided continuous data sets, overall sales of veterinary antibiotics decreased by 47% between 2011-2021 – the lowest value ever reported.

Meanwhile, in only three years, between 2018 and 2021, the 27 EU member states covered in the report already achieved an 18% reduction, or approximately one-third of the target set out in the EU’s flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy. 

The strategy sets out the goal to halve the sales of the valuable drugs by 2030 in efforts to curb the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is caused by the widespread use of antibiotics, both in human and veterinary medicine.

This results in antibiotics being increasingly ineffective against infections and rendering commonly known infections untreatable. 

Resistant bacterial infections alone are associated with nearly five million deaths per year worldwide, with around 1.3 million deaths directly attributed to the resistance superbugs, leading the World Health Organisation (WHO) to list AMR among the 10 biggest global threats. 

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Crucially, the EMA report also found that sales of antibiotic classes considered critically important in human medicine – which therefore requires prudent use in animal farming – also decreased noticeably between 2011 and 2021, accounting for only 5.5% of total sales in 2021. 

A continuation of this downward trend over the remaining eight years would therefore put member states on track to reach the 2030 target for antibiotic reduction, the report concludes. 

For Ivo Claassen, head of EMA’s veterinary medicines division, this success can be attributed to a concerted effort from the agrifood industry.

“The positive results reflect the efforts of veterinarians, farmers and the pharmaceutical industry to reduce the use of antibiotics to prevent antimicrobial resistance,” he said.

For Claassen, this also means that EU policy initiatives and national campaigns promoting the prudent use of antibiotics in animals are having a “positive impact”. 

Warning against complacency

However, the report also added a warning that the pace of the decline of antibiotic VMP sales appears to have slowed since 2017.

As such, “efforts to sustain this descending trend must be maintained and reinforced” in order to reach the 50% target, the report warns, stressing the importance of continued voluntary reporting of veterinary antibiotic sales data by European countries.

But, for Roxanne Feller, secretary general of AnimalhealthEurope, who represents manufacturers of animal medicines, this trend may reflect a “state of ‘optimal use’ where prevention is optimised, but antibiotics remain necessary for the treatment of bacterial disease that has evaded a farm’s defences”. 

“We need to keep in mind that not all illness can be prevented,” she said, adding that antibiotics “remain the only way to treat bacterial disease both in animals and in people”.

“We need to keep up our efforts to increase preventive measures and improve animal husbandry, but targeting reductions in sales of antibiotics for animals alone will not be enough to achieve the objectives of EU policies and action plans to address AMR,” she told EURACTIV.

The EMA will publish the last ESVAC report containing 2022 data submitted voluntarily by participating countries in 2023.

Meanwhile, the agency will also publish a new series of annual reports with data on sales of veterinary antimicrobials and on the use of antimicrobials in animals starting in 2025 with data from 2023. 

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[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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