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. 2020 Dec 10;9(12):892.
doi: 10.3390/antibiotics9120892.

The Use of Antimicrobials in Italian Heavy Pig Fattening Farms

Federico Scali  1 , Giovanni Santucci  1 , Antonio M Maisano  1 , Francesca Giudici  1 , Federica Guadagno  1 , Matteo Tonni  1 , Alberto Amicabile  1 , Nicoletta Formenti  1 , Enrico Giacomini  1 , Massimiliano Lazzaro  1 , Giorgio Bontempi  1 , Nicoletta Vitale  2 , Lis Alban  3 , Jeroen Dewulf  4 , Adriana Ianieri  5 , Sergio Ghidini  5 , Giancarlo Belluzzi  5 , Loredana Candela  6 , Angelica Maggio  6 , Paolo Pasquali  7 , Silvio Borrello  6 , Giovanni L Alborali  1
Affiliations

The Use of Antimicrobials in Italian Heavy Pig Fattening Farms

Federico Scali et al. Antibiotics (Basel). .

Abstract

Data on antimicrobial use (AMU) in heavy pig production (>150 kg) are limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the AMU in this production. Data from 2015 were collected for 143 fattening farms. The AMU was estimated through a treatment index per 100 days (TI100) using the defined daily dose animal for Italy (DDDAit). When possible, a comparison with the European Medicines Agency's defined daily doses for animals (DDDvet) was performed. The median TI100 was 10.7 (range, 0.2-49.5). Group treatments represented 94.6% of overall consumption. The AMU calculated using DDDAit and DDDvet were strongly correlated (ρ = 0.976; p < 0.001). The AMU was negatively correlated with injectables use (ρ = -0.46, p < 0.001) and positively correlated with oral products (ρ = 0.21, p = 0.014), premixes (ρ = 0.26, p = 0.002), and mortality (ρ = 0.18; p = 0.027). Farm size was negatively correlated with AMU (ρ = -0.29, p < 0.001). Smaller farms were more frequently above the median TI100 (odds ratio = 2.3, 95% confidence interval = 1.2-4.7), suggesting that they may have lower biosecurity and management standards. The results of this study should provide useful insights for the development of an Italian monitoring system.

Keywords: AMU; DDDAit; DDDvet; mortality; pig production; prudent use; swine.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
A box and whisker plot (Tukey) showing the distribution of the number of pigs reared (thousand heads) on 143 Italian farms during 2015. The median was 4697 pigs, ranging from a minimum of 1014 to a maximum of 43,159.
Figure 2
Figure 2
A box and whisker plot (Tukey) showing the distribution of the overall treatment index per 100 days (TI100) for 143 Italian pig farms during 2015. The median was 10.7, ranging from a minimum of 0.2 to a maximum of 49.5. The TI100 for World Health Organization’s highest priority critically important antimicrobials (HPCIAs) [4] only is also shown. The median was 1.5, ranging from a minimum of 0.0 to a maximum of 18.0.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Scatter plot and trend line of 2015 TI100 in 143 Italian fattening farms included in this study, where each dot represents a farm. TI100 was calculated using either the defined daily dose animal for Italy (DDDAit) or the European Medicine Agency’s defined daily doses for animals (DDDvet) [24] considering only antimicrobials where the DDDvet was available. The two metrics were significantly correlated (ρ = 0.98; p < 0.001).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Scatter plot and trend line of 2015 TI100 and number of reared pigs in 143 Italian fattening farms included in this study, where each dot represents a farm. A significant negative correlation (ρ = −0.29, p < 0.001) was found between TI100 and reared pigs.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Scatter plot and trend line of 2015 TI100 and mortality in 143 Italian fattening farms included in this study, where each dot represents a farm. A significant positive correlation (ρ = 0.18, p = 0.027) was found between TI100 and mortality.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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