Considerable worries over the availability of veterinary medicines have been expressed at the British Veterinary Association's annual congress in Bath from September 23 to 26.
This was the second consecutive year that the topic had been placed on the congress agenda, which suggests increasing concern about the effects of high prices and inflexible regulations.
Participants were told that exorbitant pricing strategies pursued by many manufacturers were causing the emergence of a significant black market. Prices in other European Union countries and the United States were substantially lower than in Britain. Five days' antibiotic treatment for a horse in Germany could cost around £25, while similar treatment in Britain could cost 10 times as much. Over half (62 per cent) of all veterinary medicines sold in the UK were cheaper in Eire, which caused some farmers to buy them by mail order using the internet. This raised questions about safety and quality and several cases of illegal importation were being investigated with prosecutions expected soon. In some cases complementary remedies were being used to save money rather than as part of an organic farming philosophy.
A panel of speakers from the BVA's main species divisions expressed concern about the effect restrictive regulations had on their practice. European regulations set minimum residue levels and medicines were being withdrawn from the market because of the uneconomic cost of complying with these requirements.
In the case of minor species, including exotic and zoo animals, there were virtually no licensed medicines available. Only four licensed medicines existed for the treatment of fish and most fish-orientated research and development was directed towards salmon at the expense of the less commercially viable varieties, such as trout. Although 288 medicines were licensed for use in sheep, most were antibiotics or antiparasitics, with no analgesics, sedatives or NSAIDs.
The furore over antibiotic resistance meant that restrictions were being applied across all species when it was only treatment involving animals in the food chain that needed to be restricted.
This created a problem for equine vets, because, although horses were largely used for sport and leisure in Britain, they were classed as food animals in other European countries and were thus subject to the same European regulations as animals in the food chain. Further, there was no evidence that human resistance could be acquired by treating companion animals with antibiotics.
Other speakers felt that it was unreasonable that vets had to record the batch numbers of medicines dispensed for animals when pharmacists did not have to do so.
The conference was told that a BVA committee was considering these and other matters and a report would be published in the near future.
A full day of the congress was devoted to the subject of wildlife zoonoses, with several speakers warning that minor changes in the weather pattern was likely to cause the emergence of a number of new diseases in the UK.
The increasing distribution of Lyme disease, particularly in the New Forest, meant that pharmacists there were likely to receive enquiries about 'flu like symptoms and joint swelling resulting from infected tick bites, possibly many months after tick bites, the conference heard.