The UK pig sector recorded a slight increase in antibiotic use in 2024, although usage has largely stabilised following a more pronounced increase in 2023.
Data collected using the electronic Medicine Book (eMB) show that antibiotic use in UK pigs was 86 mg/PCU (milligrams per Population Correction Unit) in 2024, up from 85mg/PCU in 2023 and the low of 72mg/PCU in 2022.
Despite this increase, overall antibiotic use is still 17.9% lower than in 2020 and remains at less than a third of the usage recorded in 2015, since when the figure has declined by 69%.
Importantly, usage of highest priority critically important antibiotics (HP-CIA), those also important in human medicine, remains at a very low level, despite a slight increase from 0.007 mg/PCU to 0.009 mg/PCU in 2024. No Colistin use has been reported in pigs in 2024.
Disease challenges
AHDB said: “The disease challenges seen by some pig producers in 2023 continued into 2024, but the quarterly usage submissions indicate that the peak has passed and that antibiotic use is decreasing.”
It noted that the last remaining stocks of zinc oxide, which was widely used to reduce post-weaning diarrhoea, will have been used during early 2024 and antibiotics are one of the treatments available to help manage this condition.
“We will have to wait for the 2025 data to gain an insight into the full impact of the removal of zinc oxide,” AHDB said.
NPA chief policy adviser Katie Jarvis said: “While usage has inched up, it has stabilised after the 2023 rise, and this still represents huge progress from the 2015 baseline figure. It is also important to highlight, in the context of some of the commentary around antibiotic use, that HP-CIA usage remains at very low levels.
“Particularly given the challenges of losing zinc oxide and the continued spread of diseases like swine dysentery, we can expect an element of plateauing from now on, with some years reducing and some years increasing, depending on external factors like disease and vaccine availability.
“We continue to stress zero antibiotic use is not conducive to good animal welfare. The industry will continue to use as little as possible, but as much as necessary. We’re committed as an industry to an overall downward trend.”