Animal Health Awareness week – focus on AMR

As part of Animal Health Awareness week, on this week’s OviCast are Department of Agriculture Vets Caroline Garvan and Damian Barrett. Damian begins by explaining the objective of Animal Health Awareness week and its importance in the current climate while Caroline explains why Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major concern and the concept of the one health approach. They discuss the usage within the sheep sector and how the overall industry figure is calculated and Caroline explains why some types of antibiotics are deemed critically important due to their use in human medicine and how the route of administration can impact the development of AMR. Both Damian and Caroline discuss how good animal health can impact productivity, how we should approach health issues on farms and ways sheep farmers can reduce their antibiotic use. They move on to discuss some of the health challenges facing the sector at present and discuss the programme of informative webinars that will take place as part of this year’s Animal Health Awareness week that runs from 18th-24th November. For more information: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/45f45-antimicrobial-resistance-amr/ http://www.animalhealthsurveillance.agriculture.gov.ie/currentnews/lambliverflukeantibodytestresults-september2021.html For more episodes from the OviCast podcast, visit the show page at: https://www.teagasc.ie/animals/sheep/ovicast-sheep-podcast