Taken from the September 29, 2023 National Grain and Feed Association Newsletter
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) on Sept. 27 released its five-year plan for supporting antimicrobial stewardship in veterinary settings.
The plan, entitled “Supporting Antimicrobial Stewardship in Veterinary Settings, Goals for Fiscal Years 2024-2028,” builds upon the previous plan for fiscal years 2019-2023 and is intended to provide stakeholders with a transparent roadmap of the actions that correspond to FDA’s three main veterinary stewardship goals:
- Align antimicrobial drug product use with the principles of antimicrobial stewardship
- Foster stewardship of antimicrobials in veterinary settings
- Enhance monitoring of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial drug use in animals
The new plan outlines a variety of activities that FDA intends to take, including:
- Revising as necessary, the use conditions for approved, medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals, including developing approaches on defining duration of use for medically important antimicrobial drugs that currently lack such parameters
- Developing and implementing a strategy for promoting antimicrobial stewardship in companion animals Updating the list of medically important antimicrobials
- Exploring antimicrobial resistance testing strategies for animal food
- Collecting and analyzing data on antimicrobial drug use, including implementation of a framework for obtaining antimicrobial use data in animals
Progress that FDA has made towards the goals outlined within its plans to support antimicrobial stewardship is available for review at www.fda.gov.
By David Fairfield, senior vice president, Feed