Quarterly Antibiotic Usage Reporting – 2017 to 2020

Summary

Over the last several years there has been increasing public scrutiny of the use of antibiotics in animal agriculture and the role that this may play in the development of antimicrobial resistance. As a consequence of these concerns, the feedlot sector is keen to collect and collate data on antibiotic usage in the feedlot industry. The collected data will be used to demonstrate industry performance over time, should the need arise.

This project will continue to collect data from feedlot health software programs and report aggregated ‘de-identified’ antibiotic use data to MLA to maintain strict confidentiality of feedlot data sources. Quarterly reports will be produced for internal confidential review by ALFA and MLA.

Objectives

• Provide quarterly antibiotic use reports to MLA and ALFA for internal confidential review including scripted injectables and scripted in-feed antibiotics.
• Maintain both industry co-operator and consulting veterinarian confidentiality and commercial sensitivity requirements.

Key findings

• A total of 22 feedlots participated in the project, with 20 feedlots (329,222 head average occupancy) contributing complete five year data to the analysis.
• Medically important injectable and topical doses per 1,000 head days have decreased over the five year period.
• Medically important injectable and topical usage as weighted percent of closed lots have decreased over the five year period.
• Medically important injectable and topical antimicrobial usage as a percent of closed lots has decreased over the measurement period.
• Further work will be required to integrate in-feed medically important antimicrobial use (virginiamycin and chlorotetracycline) with injectable/topical use to create a single aggregated use metric for the industry. As this metric has not been integrated, the total quantity of antimicrobial use in the feedlot sector cannot be predicted from injectable/topical antimicrobial use alone. Tylan was not utilised in any of the monitored feedlots.

Benefits to industry

The feedlot industry has aligned with the antimicrobial stewardship objectives of decreasing injectable and topical use of medically important antimicrobials, and has made substantial progress towards this goal. Further information is required to determine and integrate in-feed antimicrobial use to complete the picture, as current use is either not collected (Tylan and Virginiamycin) or stable (CTC).

MLA action

MLA has met the Australian Lot Feeders' Association to discuss the results of this research project. 

A current project (V.MFS.0002 is investigating developing a framework for calculating an aggregated beef industry estimate of antimicrobial use.

Future research

Recommendations for future work include:

• Continued antimicrobial use surveillance by individual feedlot enterprises as part of antimicrobial stewardship plans.
• Integration of in-feed virginiamycin, chlorotetracycline and tylan usage data to complete an accurate picture of antimicrobial use in the Australian feedlot industry.
• Development of internal industry benchmarking to promote continuous decrease in medically important antimicrobial usage when viable preventatives and alternatives are
  available.