The use of antibiotics for blanket dry cow therapy is unsustainable, according to Hazel Sheridan, senior veterinary inspector with the Department of Agriculture.

Speaking on the threat of antimicrobial resistance at the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society (ICOS) national conference in UCC on Tuesday, Sheridan said that dry cow therapy currently accounts for 2.1% of antibiotic usage in animals in Ireland.

Critically Important Antimicrobials

However, the type of antibiotics used in blanket dry cow therapy is deemed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to be critically important to human health. These antibiotics are listed as high-priority antibiotics for human health, or Critically Important Antimicrobials (CIAs).

Sheridan said the view of the medical profession was that these antibiotics should be banned from use in animals altogether in the interests of human health.

Limiting use

However, the view of the Department of Agriculture is that these antibiotics, or CIAs, should only be used in limited situations in animals when all other options have been exhausted.

They should not be used as the first treatment in disease, such as they now are in blanket dry cow therapy. As such, Sheridan concluded that blanket dry cow therapy would need to end as it was not sustainable in the long run.

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Antibiotics used in dry cow therapy are too important to human health, according to a senior veterinary inspector at the Department of Agriculture.