Glenn F Browning1
1Asia-Pacific Centre for Animal Health, Melbourne Veterinary School, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010. glenfb@unimelb.edu.au
Abstract:
Solutions are urgently needed to mitigate the global antimicrobial resistance emergency. One of the most immediate measures that can be introduced to slow the rise in development of multiple drug resistance is improving our stewardship of the antimicrobial drugs we currently have available. In animal health the greatest use of antimicrobials is in the livestock industries, where they are used to prevent, control and treat diseases that compromise animal health, welfare and productivity, and that can also affect food safety. In many countries much of the focus has been on restricting the use of antimicrobials in animal health. While this has reduced the total amounts of antimicrobials used in some countries, it has the potential to have an adverse effect on animal health and welfare because of limits on treatment of diseased animals. In many of the animal agricultural industries, it may be possible to achieve reductions in use of antimicrobials, and concurrently improve animal health and welfare, by developing vaccines for key diseases that drive antimicrobial use, and by increasing use of the vaccines that we already have available, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Live attenuated vaccines against mycoplasmas in poultry were developed in Australia over 30 years ago, and their widespread use resulted in dramatic reductions in the use of macrolides. However, in many countries microbiological diagnostic capacity is very limited and this can result in high levels of empirical treatment, often focussed on secondary pathogens, rather than the agent primarily responsible for disease. There are likely to be significant global benefits from development of rapid, animal-side diagnostic tests for vaccine-controllable diseases of livestock, if this is coupled with enhanced vaccine availability, as this will create both a drive for improved prevention of infectious diseases and ensure non-antimicrobial solutions are available to farmers.