A changing landscape

Antimicrobials have an important role in both human and veterinary medicine.

However a number of factors, including the need to guard against antimicrobial resistance, have placed increasing emphasis on the need to support strict “judicious use” across all forms of antimicrobial use.

In agriculture, industry is shifting toward improved strategies to reduce disease risk and lessen the potential need for antimicrobial use.

Regulatory changes in both the U.S. and Canada are also driving this trend, by moving to eliminate the use in agriculture of antimicrobials important to human medicine and also to eliminate the use of antimicrobials for production purposes such as efficiency and growth promotion.

Antimicrobial use in agriculture will require strict veterinary oversight and be used only for the treatment of sick animals.

At the same time, agriculture is innovating by improving strategies and tools to assist with supporting animal health and preventing disease, while also supporting production benefits in a manner that is acceptable to the marketplace including consumers.

Canada has set December 1, 2018 as the deadline new rules whereby all medically important antimicrobials (MIAs) for veterinary use will be sold by prescription only. Similar restrictions are already implemented in the U.S.

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