Antimicrobial use, biosecurity, herd characteristics, and antimicrobial resistance in indicator Escherichia coli in ten Finnish pig farms

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“…Although the results presented above suggest a linkage between AMU and AMR, such relationships are difficult to verify. Similar to our findings, Yun et al (2021) reported recently that higher AMU in herds was not reflected in a higher proportion of resistant isolates. By contrast, Akwar et al (2008) showed that AMU in both weaned and finishing pigs was associated with the proportion of resistance to various antimicrobial agents.…”

“…The MR phenotypes detected in our study herds included resistance usually to sulfamethoxazole, trimethoprim, and tetracycline. A similar pattern has been reported previously in Finland (Finnish Food Authority, 2020; Yun et al, 2021) and Europe (EFSA, 2020a). Dewulf et al (2007) observed that resistance against tetracyclines was often accompanied by resistance against ampicillin and sulfa-trimethoprim.…”

“…Positively, more than half of the studied isolates were susceptible to all antimicrobials tested. A similar trend was reported in Finnish herds recently (Yun et al, 2021) and is in line with the results from the national AMR monitoring (Finnish Food Authority, 2020; EFSA, 2020a). As in Nordic neighbors, the resistance occurrence among porcine indicator E. coli in Finland is low relative to other European countries (EFSA, 2020a).…”

“…Nationally, the proportion of MR indicator E. coli of all resistant isolates among slaughtered pigs was 36% in 2019 (Finnish Food Authority, 2020). Younger pigs have been reported to carry more resistant bacteria (Langlois et al, 1988;Dewulf et al, 2007;Akwar et al, 2008;Yun et al, 2021), which may explain the observed difference because we took samples from pigs at post-weaning and finishing stages. The MR isolates found, however, were resistant against a maximum of four different antimicrobials.…”

“…One could speculate here whether sows are treated at a lower threshold in Nordic countries or whether the standard weight for sows has been set too low. However, the variation in AMU within countries is considerable (Raasch et al, 2018;O'Neill et al, 2020;Yun et al, 2021), suggesting that also other than calculation-related factors, such as herd type (van der Fels-Klerx et al, 2011;Moreno, 2012), could influence the results. Many studies have, for instance, investigated farrow-to-finish herds (Sjölund et al, 2016;Raasch et al, 2018;O'Neill et al, 2020).…”