Fears For Our Horses If Drugs Are Used Badly

INCREASING antibiotic resistance could lead to horses’ dying from infections as vets will not be able to treat them, a leading practitioner has warned.

- Eleanor Jones

To mark European antibiotics awareness day (EAAD) on 18 November, and world antibiotic awareness week (13-19 November) former British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) president Mark Bowen told H&H bacterial resistance to the drugs is a “massive threat to both human and horse health”.

“If you don’t use antibiotics appropriately, bacteria will become resistant to them,” he said.

“It’s been seen in humans. It’s occasionally seen in equine health at the moment but it’s an emerging problem. If we don’t preserve the antibiotics we’ve got, infections will be more difficult to treat, and simple wounds more difficult to resolve.

“We would see all sorts of infections that we currently treat with ease becoming increasingly resistant and it could be horses will die as a result of our being unable to treat them.”

Mr Bowen said colic surgery or wounds near joints are among the issues for which antibiotics must be used but that they must be kept for these appropriate situations.

“Antibiotics are absolutely essential to the way we treat horses but the veterinary profession is encouraging preserving what we call protected antibiotics for the most serious cases, so we use them a lot less.