Antimicrobial Use Surveillance Indicators for Finfish Aquaculture Production: A Review

Abstract

Quantification and tracking of antimicrobial use (AMU) are key factors for the development of responsible antimicrobial stewardship programs and comparison between countries. Global finfish aquaculture growth and increased AMU creates the potential for exchange of antimicrobial resistance between aquatic and terrestrial environments, making AMU surveillance imperative for this industry. The objective of this review is to collate current literature on AMU surveillance indicators and their application to commercial finfish aquaculture production. A systematic search strategy was applied to five databases: Medline, Embase, Agricola, CAB abstracts, and Biosis. To be included, studies must report on at least one AMU surveillance indicator for use in animals. There is no single, standardized indicator suitable to report finfish aquaculture AMU. The type and availability of finfish aquaculture data presents unique considerations for AMU reporting. Ultimately, the indicator used should be fit-for-purpose to satisfy the objective of the surveillance program, motivation for comparison and provide useful information to the industry stakeholders. Finfish aquaculture total annual slaughter weight allows estimation of biomass for the population correction unit (PCU) to report annual total mg of active antimicrobial ingredient per PCU. These data are commonly reported by finfish aquaculture-producing countries, allowing for international comparisons. However, this precludes the ability to compare to terrestrial livestock where the PCU is based on animal numbers and an average treatment weight, which are not available for finfish aquaculture. The mg per adjusted PCU indicator provides an interesting alternative that incorporates the length of the marine grow-out phase for finfish, but is subject to the same limitations. The number of defined daily doses animal per animal-days-at-risk is useful but also limited by a lack of a defined average treatment weight. The concept of average treatment weight remains challenging for the industry as it does not accurately reflect the timing of actual AMU to fish in the system. The term “average biomass” is more reflective of the intent of AMU surveillance indicators. Defining an average treatment weight, or average biomass, will require industry engagement, which is crucial if AMU reporting is to be deemed credible and provide value back to the finfish aquaculture industry.

Zoonotic sources and the spread of antimicrobial resistance from the perspective of low and middle-income countries

“…The technical guidelines on the prudent and responsible use of veterinary medicines in aquaculture (provided by the FAO) address the need for appropriate environmental assessment and monitoring of drug and chemical use and its impact [ 74 ]. However, standardized AMU indicators for aquaculture are not available, counteracting any efforts to compare antimicrobial use on a local or global scale [ 75 ].…”

Rapid growth of antimicrobial resistance: the role of agriculture in the problem and the solutions

“…For example, antibiotics are used in a wide range -from 1 g/t in Norway to 700 g/t in Vietnam (Defoirdt et al 2011). Strict governmentcontrolled surveying and transparent antibiotic use reporting in Scandinavian countries, with high use of alternatives to antibiotic use, can be credited for this outstanding practice in Norway (Defoirdt et al 2011;Krzemiński et al 2020;Narbonne et al 2021). Asian countries yield two-thirds of global food fish production, yet concerning levels of resistance to clinically critical antibiotics and high levels of foodborne zoonotic pathogens are evident (Schar et al 2021), and it resulted in accumulated resistance along with Asia's major river systems, especially in China and India (Schar et al 2021).…”

Canadian Collaboration to Identify a Minimum Dataset for Antimicrobial Use Surveillance for Policy and Intervention Development across Food Animal Sectors

“…1 In addition to VASR, CIPARS access open data collected by Fisheries and Oceans Canada under the Aquaculture Activities Regulations of the Fisheries Act. 2 Aquaculture data are not yet reported by biomass unit (i.e., using the AMU indicators routinely used by CIPARS for AMU reporting in terrestrial animals), but exploration of methodological options for data analysis and future reporting are underway [ 31 ]. 3 At the time of writing, the industry (i.e., poultry sector) utilizes count-based indicators to communicate results within their producer networks; as mentioned above, methodology for quantitative AMU indicator analysis and reporting are underway.…”