The Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM) on Tuesday announced its 2020 Summary Report on Antimicrobials Sold or Distributed for Use in Food-Producing Animals. FDA-CVM has also updated their Questions and Answers website to reflect this current information.
Some highlights from the report include:
- Between 2019 and 2020 domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobial drugs approved decreased by 3%.
- There has been a 38% decrease in domestic sales and distribution of medically important antimicrobial drugs since 2015.
- Medically-important sales and distribution by species:
- 41% estimated for use in cattle
- 41% estimated for use in swine
- 12% estimated for use in turkeys
- 2% estimated for use in chickens
- 4% estimated for use in other species/unknown
- For chicken, medically important estimated annual totals are:
- 2016 – 508,800 kgs
- 2017 – 268,047 kgs
- 2018 – 221,774 kgs
- 2019 – 192,964 kgs
- 2020 – 141,793 kgs
- There has been a 72% reduction between 2016 and 2020
- There has been a 27% reduction between 2019 and 2020
- Ionophores represent 35% of total antimicrobials sold and distributed and 81% of non-medically important antibiotics
- There has been a 15% decrease in ionophores between 2019 and 2020
