Today, the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE), representing European veterinarians, celebrates European Antibiotic Awareness Day and reiterates our commitment to achieve the One-Health goals on fighting AMR.
FVE is strongly committed to the “One Health” approach and has been intensively promoting responsible use, through awareness campaigns, guidelines, and policy papers. The ‘European Commission Final Overview Report – Measures to tackle Antimicrobial Resistance through the Prudent Use of Antimicrobials in Animals’ recognises this valuable contribution of the animal health sector towards improving animal health, minimising disease and therefore the need to use antibiotics. This progress has been demonstrated in numbers.
The latest ESVAC report shows a decrease by more than 32% of the overall sales of veterinary antimicrobials between 2011 and 2017 and a continuing reduction in use of antimicrobials that are considered as critical, for the 31 countries across Europe that provided data during this period.
FVE aims to strengthen collaborations with human and animal healthcare stakeholders to highlight how disease prevention is crucial for reducing the need to use antimicrobials in humans and animals. In that respect we will also continue to work with EPRUMA, the European Platform on Responsible Use of Medicines in Animals, to ensure that antibiotics will be used ‘as little as possible, as much as necessary’
