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British Study Finds 11 Percent Of Equine Patients Prescribed Antibiotics At Non-Routine Appointments
The threat of antibiotic or antimicrobial resistance is in the human and animal health news more and more these days. In recent years, bacteria have developed immunity to some common types of antibiotics used in humans and animals, leading to concerns that "super bugs" could become fatal if there are no longer effective drugs to kill them. As a result, physicians and veterinarians have been encouraged to reduce the use of antibiotics where possible, to give bugs less opportunity to build resistance.
One of the challenges with that in equine practice is that it's not easy to know how frequently antimicrobials are being prescribed in the first place. A study published this month in the peer-reviewed journal Equine Veterinary Education sought to quantify the frequency of antimicrobial prescriptions across several equine vet practices in England and Wales. Though not the first study to do so, study authors from CVS Group wrote that it collected more data points than some previous work.
The study recorded antibiotic prescriptions on one day a month across 17 practices in the same veterinary group for a year. The study only looked at systemic antibiotic use (excluding topicals and eye administrations), and excluded routine appointments for vaccines and wellness checks. It also focused on first-opinion visits, meaning the vet was the first to see the horse for the problem at hand.
The study found 252 horses received antibiotics across 2,273 appointments, making for a prescription rate of about 11 percent. Some practices prescribed 0 antibiotics, while others had rates as high as 26.4 percent.
The most common diagnoses that led to antibiotic prescription were cellulitis (26.8 percent), wounds (18.7 percent), as a preventative around surgery (14.6 percent), respiratory infections (11 percent), and skin infection (8.1 percent). Sulphonamides were the most common antibiotic class prescribed at 43.6 percent, with oxytetracycline (23.2 percent) and procaine penicillin (16 percent) and doxycyline (14.4 percent) following behind.
As guidelines regarding antibiotic use continue to develop, researchers suggest additional data be gathered where possible from more locations and situations.
Read the full study here.
