- Date posted: 25th July 2023
WSAVA Congress to confront antimicrobial prescribing challenges
"Veterinary antimicrobial stewardship is a key component of the One Health mission to address AMR yet the most effective ways in which to achieve reduced or optimized prescription are still unclear"- Fergus Allerton.
The WSAVA Shaping the Future session will explore how influencing human behaviour could tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR) at this year’s WSAVA Congress in Lisbon.
The session will feature members of the WSAVA’s Therapeutics Guidelines Group (TGG), who will investigate the challenges of effective antimicrobial prescribing, as well as highlighting resources available for practitioners.
It will explore the different approaches used to support effective prescribing such as enablement interventions, which provides prescribers with useful information, guidelines and resources, and restrictive interventions, which requires prescribers to adhere to strict rules and legislation.
The discussion will consider the common behavioural pitfalls in making antimicrobial selection choices, the role of legislation in improving practices and evaluate the outcomes of the different approaches in Europe, the UK and the USA.
The session, titled ‘Restriction, Enablement, Behaviour Modification: what is the best approach to improve antimicrobial prescribing?’, will take place 28 September at 11.20am. It will include speakers such as incoming TGG co-chairs Dr Fergus Allerton and Dr Jennifer Granick.
It will be followed by a panel discussion and review of TGG’s work, presented by outgoing chairs Dr Paulo Steagall and Dr Luca Guardabassi.
TGG member Fergus Allerton said: “Veterinary antimicrobial stewardship is a key component of the One Health mission to address AMR yet the most effective ways in which to achieve reduced or optimized prescription are still unclear.
“In France and Germany, for instance, a restrictive approach is currently favoured while the EU has also recently introduced restrictions on the use of antimicrobials in veterinary medicine. In contrast, in the UK and USA, a more enablement focused approach has been adopted. During our session we will explore how these different approaches are working in practice and what lessons can be learned.”
Gaining a better understanding of ways in which we can optimize prescribing is critical if we are to mitigate the threat from AMR and will enable us to support policy makers across the world who are urgently seeking strategies that will most successfully influence human behaviour in this area.”