Contact:
Ingrid Arias
World Organisation for Animal Health
12 rue de Prony
75017 Paris, France
[email protected] |
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Introduction
Antimicrobial agents are essential tools for protecting animal health and welfare. They also contribute to satisfying the increasing world demand for safe food of animal origin, such as milk, meat and eggs. To ensure sustainability of livestock production, the efficacy of antimicrobial agents must be preserved through their responsible and prudent use.
Antimicrobial resistance is a global human and animal health concern that is influenced by both human and non-human usages of antimicrobial agents. The human, animal and plant sectors therefore have a shared responsibility to minimise antimicrobial resistance selection pressures on human and non-human pathogens and to contain antimicrobial resistance illustrating the One Health approach.
The OIE has worked actively for more than a decade on veterinary products, including antimicrobial agents, and developed a strategy for its activities in this area. Given that antimicrobial resistance is often an animal and human health issue, the OIE works closely with all its Member Countries, as well as with international organisations such as WHO, FAO and the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
The OIE has developed international standards and promotes the responsible and prudent use of antimicrobial agents in terrestrial and aquatic animals, as it is crucial to safeguard their therapeutic efficacy for both animals and humans.
The OIE’s standards also address the surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and the monitoring of quantities of antimicrobial agents used in food producing animals. The OIE standards provide guidance for OIE Member Countries to appropriately address the risk of the emergence or spread of resistant bacteria.
Several of these OIE standards and the OIE list of antimicrobials of veterinary importance, already adopted by all Member Countries, are currently under revision to incorporate recent scientific developments with the participation of WHO and FAO. |
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