The Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council says regulatory changes to antimicrobial use in animals will result in greater veterinary oversight while allowing continued access to these products.
As of December 1st all medically important antimicrobials used in veterinary medicine will be sold by prescription only in Canada.
Dr. Egan Brockhoff, the Veterinary Counsel with the Canadian Pork Council, explains according to Health Canada’s metrics there are four categories of antimicrobials, the first three of which are considered medially important to human health and the fourth category not considered medically important.
The medically important antimicrobials are divided into the three top categories and then the fourth category, largely ionophores, do not become prescription. They remain as simple over the counter antimicrobials that will be accessible in feed. There won’t be any loss of antimicrobials in the Canadian market. No antimicrobials will be removed from the market at all. Those that weren’t prescription become prescription. Those antimicrobials that only had growth promotion labels, the manufacturers of those have been given a number of years already to come out with prevention or treatment labels so, in general, there’s just a shift in terms of the process. Everything will become prescription, growth promotion leaves, medically important antimicrobials will still be accessible through your feed, through water and through injection but they will simply require a veterinary prescription.
~ Dr. Egan Brockhoff, Canadian Pork Council
Dr. Brockhoff acknowledges the changes will lead to a heavy download of work onto the veterinarians, who will be largely responsible for doing this work but it will also result in closer relationships between veterinarians and their clients.
