Brussels, 31/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 30 July, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) provided a response to the first of a series of four questions raised by the European Commission in a request to the Agency on 15 February this year related to the work carried out in its action plan on antimicrobial resistance. The Commission is specifically studying the use of antimicrobials in veterinary medecine and the potential impact of this use on human health and animal health. On Tuesday, the EMA provided advice on one of the four questions put to it by the European Commission on the use of the antibiotics colistin and tigecycline in veterinary medicine. Currently these two antibiotics are used on human patients suffering from different kinds of infections caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria
The EMA advice on the use of these antibiotics in veterinary medicine recommends: 1) maintaining the use of colistin in veterinary medicine but restricting its use to the treatment of infected animals and those in contact with them, and to remove all indications for preventive use (this medicine has been used for the past 50 years to treat animals). The EMA says that the European Commission should determine the best way to amend the labelling and product literature for colistin-containing veterinary medicines to reflect this more restricted pattern of use. The advice also recommends strengthening the systems for monitoring resistance to colistin; 2) Tigecycline is not currently approved for use in animals. Some vets, however, say that there is some anecdotal evidence of the use in dogs and cats of tigecycline products authorised for human use. The EMA believes that, at this stage, there is absolutely no need to extend its use to veterinary medicine. The EMA's answers to the four questions put to it by the Commission are expected at the end of next year. (IL/transl.fl)