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The Department of Agriculture is set to monitor vets who over-prescribe medicines through a new electronic prescription system, the Irish Farmers Journal can reveal.
The system is currently under consideration for development, with an objective to have it operational from early 2022, coinciding with the new Veterinary Medicines Regulation.
Understanding the drivers of antibiotics is what is needed to influence use and behaviour
The database will serve as part of the Department’s efforts to tackle those in the veterinary profession who are not following best practice when prescribing medicines, according to superintending veterinary inspector Caroline Garvan.
“Understanding the drivers of antibiotics is what is needed to influence use and behaviour. New regulations will mean all vets will have to justify their use.”
Support competition
The new regulation requires each member state to collect data on the use of antimicrobials in animals.
A spokesperson for the Department told the Irish Farmers Journal that a secure prescribing online system will support this aim.
The system will allow for seamless record-keeping of veterinary medicine prescribing, supply and usage
“Given that a key objective of the new legislation is to address the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance, the development of this system will allow the Department to promote and support best practice with regard to prescribing.
“The system will allow for seamless record-keeping of veterinary medicine prescribing, supply and usage to the benefit of all stakeholders.”
The Department also claims that the new system has potential to support competition in the supply of veterinary medicines to the benefit of farmers.
Cutting completely
Speaking at the VirtualVet strategies for agri-food industry webinar, professor of veterinary epidemiology at Ghent University, Jeroen Dewulf, said the solution to avoiding potential resistance will come from using as little antimicrobials as possible.
“In future, if you want to keep your licence to produce food, farmers need to shift production to a system where they use no antibiotics at all. Hurdles to use them should be much bigger and they shouldn’t be easy or cheap to buy.
“On the research front, we have to get away from microbiology and go towards the field, getting to the bottom of why we use antibiotics and the behaviours behind it.”
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