The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has added a new platform to its toolkit in the fight to slow the worsening levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The Antimicrobial Sales and Use (ASU) Platform was provided for under the Veterinary Medicinal Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2019/6).
The platform requires the mandatory collection and reporting of data on the use of antimicrobial medicinal products in animals from across the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA).
All EU member states (MS) are required to submit data on sales and use of antimicrobials to the platform, which will help the EMA to follow trends in volume of sales and determine levels of use of antimicrobials in animals, over time.
The platform replaces the voluntary European Surveillance of Veterinary Antimicrobial Consumption (ESVAC) platform which was put in place by the EMA between 2010-2023 to monitor the sales of veterinary antimicrobials.
All EU/EEA MS must use the ASU platform to report data on antimicrobial use in cattle, pigs, chickens and turkeys from January 2024. The reporting of data on use in other animal species will be implemented gradually.
The EMA will publish annual reports of the main results of the analysed data. The first report is expected in March 2025.
Further reading:
EMA: Antimicrobial sales and use platform
EMA: Guideline on the reporting of antimicrobial sales and use in animals at EU level – denominators and indicators
