Do you find the selection of antimicrobials to treat different bacterial diseases in farm animals is often a bit of a minefield and can leave you feeling confused?

The first part of this webinar seeks to simplify the selection process. The second half of the webinar explains how medicine audits can be used to measure and monitor antibiotic use on farms. These audits are increasingly required of producers and their vets but what purpose do they serve and how can they benefit both clients and their animals? The webinar discusses how to analyse antibiotic use data in an effective way to help vets understand what is really happening on farms so we can have meaningful conversations with farmers and apply useful interventions to reduce antibiotic use. We also discuss the threat antibiotic use poses to antibiotic resistance in animals and humans.

Why do this course?
All farm animal vets will, at some point be required to perform a medicines review for a herd or flock health plan. Analysing the data in the most appropriate way can change this from a box-ticking exercise to a valuable investigation into antibiotic use on a farm. Furthermore, having an understanding of what is known about risk factors for antibiotic resistance on farms (including antibiotic use) will give you confidence to have conversations about this with clients and advise them in the best way to manage their antibiotic use to safeguard the health of their animals as well as human health. We hope that by knowing how antimicrobials work, and therefore allowing you to select suitable therapies at the right time, this will only help to decrease your antimicrobial use and give you the confidence to say when they are not needed.