The Antibiotic Treatment of Calf Diarrhea in Four European Countries: A Survey

Abstract

Neonatal calves are commonly affected by diarrhea caused by different pathogens, but not always bacteria. Yet, antibiotics are routinely used as a treatment to an unknown extent. It was our goal to survey antibiotic use for the treatment of neonatal calf diarrhea in different countries and to identify influencing factors. A total of 873 farmers and veterinarians in Austria, Belgium, Portugal, and Scotland participated in a voluntary online survey. The data were analyzed using classification and regression tree analyses and chi2 tests. Overall, 52.5% of the participants stated that they use antibiotics when treating neonatal calf diarrhea. Of those, 27% use them always, and 45% use highest priority critically important antibiotics. The most important factor differentiating antibiotic use practices was the country the participants were from, which could be due to regulatory differences between the countries. All antibiotic products stated were licensed for use in cattle, but several were not licensed for the treatment of diarrhea in calves. Our study shows that there is an urgent need for more scientific evidence to define best practices for the treatment of neonatal calf diarrhea. Furthermore, consensual criteria for antibiotic therapy must be defined, and targeted training for farmers and veterinarians must be provided.

Evaluation of Consumers Perspective on the Consumption of Antibiotics, Antibiotic Resistance, and Recommendations to Improve the Rational use of Antibiotics: An Exploratory Qualitative Study From Post-Conflicted Region of Pakistan

“…Antibiotics have a faster effect than any other treatment, according to more than ten participants, which is why they are not usually prescribed ( Jacobs et al, 2019 ). According to another study, the majority of participants believed that many people get diarrhea after taking antibiotics and that if they received diarrhea, they would prefer to take another antibiotic-containing drug ( Eibl et al, 2021 ). Other studies found that participants’ usage of antibiotics was linked to previous illness or the storage of medications after they had recovered, when it comes to the usage of antibiotics, malpractices made numerous errors.…”

Antimicrobial Susceptibility of Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli from Diarrhoeic Neonatal Calves in Spain

“…Our data showed that both families presented high rates of resistant isolates (71% for tetracyclines and 88% for trimethoprim/sulphonamides) agreeing with previous investigations on E. coli strains from NCD, although most studies reported a higher percentage of isolates resistant to tetracyclines (75-100%) than to trimethoprim/sulphonamides (35-84%) [24,26,30,32,33,35]. In this study, the differences observed between both families may be related to a less use of tetracyclines compared to trimethoprim/sulphonamides for the treatment of NCD; in fact, recent data from European countries demonstrate that tetracyclines were used as first choice treatment in less than 15% of NCD cases whereas sulphonamides were chosen in more than 70% of cases [12].…”

“…Our data also reveal that fluoroquinolones were one of the antimicrobial families showing the highest AMR rates since 95% and 66-85% of ETEC isolates were resistant to first-and third-generation fluoroquinolones, respectively. These are concerning results since the different international health organizations consider third-and fourth-generation fluoroquinolones as antibiotics of critical importance for human medicine [14,41]; nevertheless, these findings could be explained by the fact that fluoroquinolones are among the most used antimicrobials for treating NCD [12]. Resistance to quinolones relies mainly on accumulative mutations of their molecular targets ("quinolone resistant determining regions" -QRDR-) and/or acquisition of specific plasmids ("plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance" -PMQR-) [39,42].…”

“…However, the use of antimicrobials for treating NCD is still a common practice among veterinary surgeons, even though ETEC involvement has not been demonstrated. In fact, a recent survey performed in four European countries revealed that 52.5% of farmers and veterinarians used antimicrobials in diarrhoeic neonatal calves, and at least 27% of these respondents used them for treating this syndrome in all cases [12]. In the present framework of increasing emergence of multi-resistant bacteria, the rational use of antibiotics has arisen as a global concern for the last decade; for this reason, the World Health Organization fosters the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) for developing strategies to contain antimicrobial resistance [13].…”

Histidine Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles for Screening Aminoglycosides and Nanomolar Level Detection of Streptomycin in Water, Milk, and Whey

“…Antibacterial drugs have been commonly applied as human and veterinary medicine to treat a wide range of infectious diseases [1][2][3]. Aminoglycosides (AMG) are broadspectrum antibiotics, are commonly prescribed for humans and a range of livestock, mainly for infections caused by Gram-negative bacteria.…”