Under a new EU law, veterinary medicines cannot be used to improve performance or compensate for poor animal husbandry.

The decision comes as the European Centre for Disease Control warned that bacteria in humans, food and animals continue to show resistance to the most widely-used antibiotics.

Any foodstuffs imported into the EU will also be targeted as the new rules will apply to all trading parties who want to continue importing to the EU.

Limits

Limits will be placed on the conditions under which antibiotics can be used on farms. The use of antibiotics as a preventative measure without any clinical signs will be allowed only in single animals where there is a high risk of infection with serious consequences.

The treatment of a group of animals when only one shows signs of infection will only be permitted where there is no other alternative and it has been justified by a vet.

Françoise Grossetête of the European People’s Party said that resistance threatened to send the health care system back to the Middle Ages

“Thanks to this law, we will be able to reduce the consumption of antibiotics on livestock farms, an important source of resistance that is then transmitted to humans.”

The law was informally agreed on Tuesday and will now be put forward to a vote by the Environment committee at the end of the month.

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