Antimicrobial Stewardship in Animals

Antimicrobial stewardship has multidimensional components encompassing the effective use of antibiotics while minimizing the development and spread of resistance. It needs to involve everyone, but particularly those involved in antibiotic use. Only a stewardship mind-set will ensure long-term sustainability of antimicrobial drugs. Although the veterinary practitioner is on the front line of stewardship, and this chapter focuses on the practitioner, the evolving concept of stewardship involves many other elements and actors. Good Stewardship Practice (GSP) and proper use of antimicrobials is critical to reduce the incidence of antimicrobial resistance and decrease the emergence of new resistance genotypes and phenotypes, as well as to reduce the versatile genetic elements that capture and move resistance genes in bacterial populations. Antimicrobial stewardship approaches are not a panacea, but are required measures to limit the clinical impact of resistance on human and animal populations.