Veterinary News Update on Antimicrobial Surveillance

17 November 2011

Consistent with the IMB's commitment to publish a report on the usage of veterinary antimicrobial agents sold in Ireland each year, a Report on the 2010 situation may be obtained in the following link Veterinary News Update on Antimicrobial Surveillance.  This exercise of annual reporting and uploading national data to a pan-European database held by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is part of the EU Commission's initiative known as the 'ESVAC' project.

The goal of this initiative is to gather information on the use of veterinary antimicrobials throughout the EU.  By this means, scientific opinion on the use of antimicrobials can be better informed and any risk factors for the potential spread of antimicrobials resistance in animals can be quantified.  The ESVAC follows closely the advice of world bodies that such data can be helpful in interpreting resistance surveillance data and can assist in the ability of government bodies to respond to problems of antimicrobial resistance in a precise and targeted way.