Summary

Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is the “the multifaceted and dynamic approaches required to sustain the clinical efficacy of antimicrobials by optimizing drug use, choice, dosing, duration, and route of administration, while minimizing the emergence of resistance and other adverse effects”. The AMS model being introduced to the major chicken meat companies follows the 5R approach:
Responsibility
The prescribing veterinarian accepts responsibility for the decision to use an antimicrobial agent and recognises that such use can have adverse consequences beyond the recipient.
Reduction
Wherever possible, means of reducing the use of antimicrobial agents should be implemented. Reduction in use may arise, for example, from enhanced infection control, biosecurity, vaccination, targeted treatment of individual animals, or reduction in the duration of treatment.
Refinement
Each use of an antimicrobial agent should incorporate into the design of the dosage regimen all available information on the patient, the pathogen, the epidemiology and the antimicrobial agent to ensure the likelihood of selecting antimicrobial resistance is minimised while the likelihood of clinical efficacy is maximised.
Replacement
The use of antimicrobial agents should be replaced whenever available evidence supports the efficacy and safety of an alternative whose benefit to risk balance is assessed by the prescriber as superior to the intended use of an antimicrobial agent.
Review
Antimicrobial stewardship initiatives should be reviewed regularly and a process of continuous improvement adopted to evaluate compliance with initiatives and ensure that antimicrobial use practices set or reflect contemporary best practice.
This project will for the first time develop a verification plan that provides objective evidence of AMS programme implementation.

Program

Chicken Meat

Research Organisation

The University of Adelaide

Objective Summary

Objective 1: To review the key elements of the AMS plan (Responsibility, Reduction, Refinement, Replacement, Review) and develop a method of assessing implementation of each element by each company.
Objective 2: To apply a participatory approach to the development of an AMS verification programme for implementation in each of the seven (7) major chicken meat companies as either a self audit or audit by an independent third party.
Objective 3: To complete a pilot verification exercise in each company, review learnings and finalise the plan.