European Union: draft conclusions on the impact of antimicrobial resistance in the veterinary sector

The Council is invited to adopt conclusions on the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the
human health sector and in the veterinary sector, calling upon member states to develop and implement national strategies or action plans for countering AMR. According to the draft conclusions these national strategies or action plans should, amongst others, include the following elements:

• national guidelines on the treatment of humans and animals with antimicrobial agents;
• communication guidelines and programmes for education and training of professionals;
• enforcement of national legislation preventing all illegal sales of antimicrobials including illegal sales over the internet;
• limitation of the use of critically important antibiotics to cases where microbiologicaldiagnosis and susceptibility testing has determined that no other type of antimicrobials willbe effective;
• limitation of prophylactic use of antimicrobials to cases with defined clinical needs;
• limitation of prescription and use of antimicrobials for herd treatment of animals to cases with a clear clinical or epidemiological justification.

The draft conclusions also call upon the member states and the Commission to examine the conditions of prescription and sale of antimicrobials in order to ascertain whether practices in human and animals healthcare may lead to over-prescription, overuse or misuse of antimicrobials.

The Commission is invited to expedite the review of legislative acts in order to take antimicrobial resistance better into account. This applies notably to directive 90/167 laying down the conditions governing the preparation, placing on the market and use of medicated feedingstuffs in the EU and directive 2001/82 on the EU code relating to veterinary medicinal products. The draft conclusions take into account the outcome of the conference on "Combating Antimicrobial Resistance - Time for Joint Action" organised by the Danish presidency in Copenhagen on 14-15 March 2012.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO)3 about 440 000 new cases of multidrugresistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) emerge annually, causing at least 150 000 deaths. A high percentage of hospital-acquired infections are caused by highly resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).