Measurement of Antimicrobial Usage: What Can We Learn Across Livestock Sectors?

Microbes (e.g., bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi) can become resistant to clinical or veterinary drugs (antimicrobials) that are used to treat disease. This has major consequences for how microbial diseases are managed and, therefore, how antimicrobial compounds should be used. Measuring antimicrobial usage (AMU) is a way to monitor the amount of medicines/chemicals that enter the food-chain, and the environment and this could help to reduce antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Anthelmintics and the Environment – opening a whole can of worms?

A SEFARI Specialist Advisory Group was established in response to concerns from livestock farmers and agro-ecologists about the adverse environmental impacts of some frontline livestock worming treatments, which reach the environment either in the dung/urine of treated animals or as a result of inappropriate disposal. Information on potential environmental impacts is a prerequisite for approval of veterinary medicines in the UK, but that information is not easy to find or understand.

Gillian Mitchell

I am a research assistant, based at the Moredun Research Institute, providing technical support for the ongoing research towards the sustainable control of helminth parasites of livestock, with an emphasis on trematode (flatworm) parasites. I have experience with the application of molecular methods in novel diagnostics and the detection and management of anthelmintic resistance.

Gillian Mitchell

Moredun
Pentland Science Park
Bush Loan
Penicuik
Midlothian
EH26 0PZ

Nematodirus battus: Is it likely to spiral out of control?

Farming practices are evolving in response to intensification, diversification and climate change. As farm management has changed, pathogens of livestock have also adapted to optimise their reproduction and transmission opportunities. Our work, supported by Animal and Horticultural Development Board (AHDB), has focused on the control and biology of the economically important roundworm Nematodirus battus; a gut roundworm which annually threatens the health and welfare of young lambs across the UK. Our research has explored how Nematodirus behaves on commercial sheep farms.

Judith Evans

My background is in biomedical science in diagnostic and reference laboratories and my major areas of work are currently bacteria with zoonotic potential and the prevalence of bacteria with mechanisms to resist antibiotics.
I continue to develop my interest in E. coli, working on projects relating to prevalence and persistence of this organism in Scottish farm animals.
I manage our lab here and am able to provide results directly to the rest of the Epidemiology Team for further analysis.
 

Judith Evans

~~Future Farming Systems
 Epidemiology Research Unit
 An Lòchran
 Inverness Campus
 Inverness
 IV2 5NA

Dr Nuno Silva

In 2016, Nuno Silva joined the Moredun Research Institute to establish a research project focused on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in sheep. Since then, his work has expanded to include the transmission dynamics of mastitis pathogens and the impact and spread of AMR across wildlife, the environment, and farm animals, including AMR from a food safety perspective, aligning with a One Health approach.

Current Research Interests:

Nuno Silva

Moredun
Pentland Science Park
Bush Loan
Penicuik
Midlothian
EH26 0PZ

Professor Rick D'Eath

My research uses animal behaviour as a way to measure animal welfare, or to understand and solve animal welfare problems which involve behaviour.

Rick D'Eath

Animal & Veterinary Sciences,

SRUC, Roslin Institute Building,

Easter Bush, Midlothian

EH25 9RG