2.2.1 Benefits to animal health and welfare

Surveillance activities of resistance in pathogens in food-producing animals will generate evidence to inform the control of bacterial diseases, and have benefits for animal health and welfare. This can be at the farm level, and benefit the farmer, but it could also be as part of a national surveillance programme to control a disease, which could also benefit the industry. An example of this can be a control programme to address mastitis caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). These kinds of surveillance activities are passive, relying on the submission of clinical samples from the farmers or practitioners.

For example, the monitoring of resistance in Escherichia coli from pigs with diarrhoea in Sweden (Figure 5) showed that multidrug resistance to ampicillin and trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole increased from 20 to 42% in the last years (Aspevall et al., 2020). This type of data is also used to inform prescribing practices and recommendations, such as to support the routine susceptibility testing in cases of diarrhoea before administering the antimicrobial. The effect on the prevalence of resistance has not yet been reported.

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Figure 5 Resistance (%) in Escherichia coli from pigs in Sweden, 1995–2019. Clinical isolates from faecal samples or from samples taken post-mortem from the gastro-intestinal tract (Aspevall et al., 2020).

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Resistance to ampicillin rose from approximately 8% in 1995 to 42% in 2019; trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole increased from approximately 15% in 1995 to approximately 38% in 2019. Resistance to tetracycline was 30% in 1995 and just under 30% in 2019, despite falling to just over 10% in 2016.

Figure 5 Resistance (%) in Escherichia coli from pigs in Sweden, 1995–2019. Clinical isolates from faecal samples or from samples taken ...