Benchmarking antimicrobial use

Population corrected units (PCU) is a popularly quoted metric used to measure antibiotic microbial use (AMU). I feel that, in some cases, PCU is being incorrectly used for individual producer benchmarking purposes. It is an excellent metric when used to define the AMU on a country basis and the core data used to calculate the PCU (mg/kg) can be accurately collected in an agreed standardised form. However, it even has limitations when measuring AMU in individual countries. PCU is the only metric that can be manipulated downwards by choosing to substitute non-critically important antibiotics with critically important antibiotics. In general, critically important antibiotics have a lower dose rate than other antibiotics. When benchmarking individual producers, PCU is only of use when the kg figure for slaughtered animals is included. Where farms do not send to slaughter from their premises, creation of an estimated value would be required. While no...

Source: Veterinary Record - October 13, 2017 Category: Veterinary Research Authors: More, J. B. Tags: Letters and notices Source Type: research