By Scott Weese on Posted in MRSA/MRSP,Other animalsBacteria are smarter than we give them credit for. Or maybe we’re not a bright as we think we are. Antimicrobial stewardship is sometimes (wrongly) assumed to simply be the practice of “using fewer antimicrobials,” but it’s more complex than that, because the issue is complex. At face value, overall reduction in antimicrobial use is… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Animals,Birds,Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animals,Other diseases,Pocket petsThe post below is reproduced from CANresist.blog. It applies equally for veterinary medicine. I think most people buy into the concept of fossil fuels being finite resources. Someday, they’ll run out or logistics and cost of extraction will make them impractical. Accordingly, we’re thinking about ways to reduce and improve use (to delay the end of the… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in AnimalsThe 2017 Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS) report was just released, and as always it contains a lot of data (up to and including 2016). Some are interesting, some are concerning, some are encouraging. I’m not going to try to distill a 90 page report into a quick blog post, so I’ll cover a… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesThe World Health Organization has released new guidelines on the use of “medically important antimicrobials” (MIAs) in food animals. Here’s a list of their recommendations, along with the strength of each recommendation and quality of evidence behind it. We recommend an overall reduction in use of all classes of medically important antimicrobials in food-producing animals (Strong… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesFrom CANresist.blog: Reducing Antibiotic Use in Dairy Calves This topic’s huge, and there’s always a risk of trying to oversimplify the problem or solutions. However, some solutions for some issues might be fairly straightforward. Whether it’s on a farm, in a hospital or in a doctors office, there are situations where I think it’s widely… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Birds,Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animalsIntroducing CANresist, a new initiative aimed at fostering antibiotic stewardship in Canada across the human and animal health fields and beyond, in order to maintain the effectiveness of these life-saving drugs. Follow us at CANresist.com or CANresist.blog, or on Facebook. Also check out our Twitter feed @CANADAresist, including our #mylastantibiotic tag to talk about the last time… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animalsIt’s commonly been stated that it’s important to finish your course of antibiotics (whether “your” refers to a person or animal), as a means of reducing the risk of developing antibiotic resistance. That’s never made much sense to me, since more antibiotic exposure is more likely to lead to a risk of resistance emerging. However,… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,DogsI’ve had a lot of emails over the past few months from colleagues from other countries, asking if we’re finding much mcr-1 in Canada. mcr-1 is a gene that makes bacteria resistant to colistin, a “drug of last resort” in people with some highly resistant infections. The gene has emerged in bacteria from both animals… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsSince we developed the first version of the ISCAID guidelines for diagnosis and management of urinary tract infections in dogs and cats in 2011 (revision currently underway), most discussion about them has probably revolved around our recommendations for animals with subclinical bacteriuria. In this condition, an animal has bacteria in the urine, but no signs of disease.… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Dogs,Other diseasesA few times a year I get questions about tuberculosis (TB) in dogs, typically after a person is diagnosed with active TB and people want to know what the risks are to, and from, their dog. It’s often tough to answer those questions, because there’s limited information available. Risks exist, but how much of a… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animals,Other diseasesRecent identification of mcr-1, a gene that makes bacteria resistant to colistin (an antibiotic of last resort) raised a lot of concern. Now, there’s another one to be worried about, as a related gene, mcr-2 has been identified (Xavier et al, Eurosurveillance, July 2016). In this study, 105 colistin-resistant E. coli from calves and piglets… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,DogsA few years ago, the New Delhi metallobetalactamase-1 (NDM-1) antibiotic resistance gene attracted a lot of attention. This resistance gene can be found in (and passed between) a variety of bacteria, and bacteria possessing this gene are resistant to a wide range of drugs. A drug of last resort for those infections is colistin (a… Continue Reading
By Maureen Anderson on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Horses,Miscellaneous,Other animalsSince their discovery in the mid-1900s (which really wasn’t that long ago in the grand scheme of things), antibiotics have revolutionized human medicine, veterinary medicine and even food production. They save lives and prevent illness, helping to make both people and animals healthier, happier and more efficient at what they do. But if we want… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Cats,Dogs,Horses,Other animalsPrudent antibiotic use. Antimicrobial stewardship. Whatever you want to call it, it’s an important subject. I spend a lot of time working in this area, and figuring out how to effect real change is the challenge. That means getting to prescribers. If I’m at a conference and have a talk titled “Antimicrobial stewardship” (or something… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other diseasesI did a consultation today about a dog that illustrates some of the practical challenges to reducing antibiotic use. It was an older dog with a test result that could be consistent with an infectious disease, but one that is also common in healthy animals. The signs of illness that the dog had would have… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other diseasesThe White House has released a "National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria". This follows on the heels of "Executive Order 13676: Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria" which was issued by President Barack Obama on September 18, 2014, along with the "National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria" presented by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsEvery year, the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine (ACVIM) commissions "consensus statements" on specific topics. They’re developed by an expert panel, put up for review by ACVIM members (board certified veterinary internal medicine specialists), and published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine. Hot off the (electronic) press is the 2015 ACVIM Consensus Statement… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in MiscellaneousThe Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has released the 2012/2013 Human Antimicrobial Drug Use Report. Why write about this on a site dedicated to zoonotic diseases and diseases of animals? For a few different reasons, actually. One is that we have to realize that antibiotics (and bacteria) don’t care if drugs are used on… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsWell, "news" perhaps isn’t the best description since we’ve been seeing it for a while, but a paper in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology (Gold et al. 2014) entitled "Amikacin resistance in Staphylococcus pseudintermedius isolated from dogs" provides published support for the trend we’ve been seeing. Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is an important… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsFinally. While having nothing to do with my previous rants on the topic, the FDA has issued warning letters to the manufacturers of Angels’ Eyes and similar products that are vaguely disguised antibiotics sold for purely cosmetic reasons, and without a veterinary prescription. These products have been widely available to decrease tear staining (hardly a… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in Other animalsThe US Food and Drug Administration has released the 2011 NARMS (National Antimicrobial Resistances Monitoring System) executive report. It’s a good-news/bad-news outcome, which may be as good as can be expected, but at least there’s some good news. Here are some areas that were highlighted by the FDA. Eighty-five percent of non-typhoidal Salmonella collected from humans… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in DogsClinical guidelines are fairly new (and limited) in veterinary medicine, although they’re widespread in human medicine. Following up on recent guidelines for diagnosis of treatment of urinary tract infections in dogs and cats, a working group from the International Society for Companion Animal Infectious Diseases (ISCAID) has completed guidelines for the treatment of a common… Continue Reading
By Scott Weese on Posted in CatsAntibiotic resistance is a big deal. Lots of people and animals die because of it every year. It costs the healthcare systems (human and veterinary) tremendous amounts of money and it’s not getting better. It’s been clear for years that we have to do a better job of using antibiotics responsibly, in both animals and… Continue Reading
