USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is leading a collaborative effort to study antimicrobial use and resistance on commercial swine farms in the Midwest focusing on use and resistance related to animal health and production-related indicators.
APHIS believes this collaboration could serve as a model for future studies to monitor antimicrobial use and resistance.
Clients of Pipestone Veterinary Services will be used as the farms in the study. Several years ago, as a service to their clients, Pipestone began collecting data on antimicrobial use. Pipestone recently started sampling for antimicrobial resistance in selected pig and food safety-related pathogens.
The Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory at South Dakota State University then performs analysis and contributes expertise in bacterial isolation and antimicrobial susceptibility testing for the project, USDA said in a release.
With client approval, Pipestone will share this collected anonymized data with APHIS’s National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) for more analysis and interpretation in relation to management and disease pressure. APHIS hopes to provide the initial results from its analysis in 2022.
This project supplements the work USDA’s Veterinary Services is already doing on antimicrobial use and resistance. USDA said this is a very important One Health, the interconnectedness of animal, human and environmental health, topic that is growing in awareness.
“The collaborative effort is the first of its kind, with funding from public, private and industry sources,” USDA said in a release. “Funding is being provided in part through the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research’s International Consortium for Antimicrobial Stewardship in Agriculture and the National Pork Board, in addition to APHIS and Pipestone.”
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