Impact of Veterinary Medicine on Public Health and Environment Webinar

The European Commission highlighted the importance of setting standards to ensure adequate public health and environmental protection from the use of antimicrobials and antibiotics as veterinary medicine during a webinar on Wednesday, 28 October 2020 from 14:00-16:00 via Zoom.  The importance of controlling antibiotic use for better animal and public health was discussed at the webinar, which was organised as part of the European Green Deal campaign and which was shared live on the EU Infopoint Facebook page. 

During the webinar Professor DVM Jeroen Dewulf from Ghent University explained how the use of antimicrobials and antimicrobials could result in resistance and how this can be remedied.  Dr. Ankica Labrovic from the EU Programme Support Office presented the EU action on antimicrobial resistance, provide an overview and present EU strategies on how to turn a plan into action. Frederik Leen from the Disseminating Innovative Solutions for Antibiotic Resistance Management (DISARM) project highlighted innovative developments and good practices for better animal health and lower antibiotic use in Europe, while Burak Toksoy from the Veterinary Department presented the control procedures for use of veterinary medicines in the Turkish Cypriot community. 

The EU Farm to Fork Strategy aims for a greener and healthier agriculture system. The EU Animal Health Strategy, “Prevention is better than cure” includes plans to reduce the use of chemical pesticides, fertilisers and – in our case- antibiotics.  As part of the EU Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot community more than €15 million was allocated to improve the performance of the livestock sector, in particular animal production and health.  Assistance is provided to livestock owners (especially dairy producers), and veterinary services, in order to control and eventually eradicate contagious animal diseases and zoonosis. More than €3.8 million was particularly allocated to control and eradicate animal diseases. The programmes helped strengthen the capacity of veterinary services to secure and monitor compliance with animal health standards and other requirements for control and prevention of animal diseases and further improved capacities of veterinary specialists to prevent, control and eradicate animal diseases.

Background:

The European Commission aims to assure a high level of food safety and animal & plant health within the EU through coherent Farm to Fork measures and adequate monitoring, while ensuring an effective internal market. The central goal of the European Commission's Food Safety policy is to ensure a high level of protection of human health regarding the food industry — Europe’s largest manufacturing and employment sector. The Commission's guiding principle, primarily set out in its White Paper on Food Safety, is to apply an integrated approach from farm to fork covering all sectors of the food chain.  Animals and foodstuff obtained from animal products placed in the heart of food chain may contain residues left from veterinary medicinal products as a result of treated or diagnosed animals. These residues comprise pharmacologically active substances, excipients or degradation products, and their metabolites. Some of these substances could be harmful to humans. To protect human health, the European Parliament and Council laid down uniform rules to ensure consumer protection against potentially harmful effects of residues in foodstuffs of animal origin. These rules provide for a science-based establishment of maximum residue limits for veterinary medicinal products. A maximum residue limit is the maximum concentration of a residue of a pharmacologically active substance which may be permitted in food of animal origin.