It’s US Antibiotic Awareness Week, and battling antimicrobial resistance is a top priority of many researchers at the NC State College of Veterinary Medicine and clinicians at the NC State Veterinary Hospital.

Our Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee works to develop policies and training to sustain the health and safety of our patients and employees as we promote antimicrobial stewardship. 

In addition, the College of Veterinary Medicine this month named Dr. Erin Frey to the new position of director of infection control. Dr. Frey, a previous member of the  Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee, will oversee infection prevention and control programs to ensure the health and safety of both animals and humans. She also will continue to lead the college’s Infectious Disease Risk Management Committee.

Dr. Jen Halleran, assistant professor in ruminant medicine, serves as the NC State liaison to the National Institute of Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Education, which held its annual meeting at NC State in May.

Halleran says it’s important that NC State promote awareness about what antibiotics are and how to use them appropriately because antimicrobial resistance is a global threat that affects human health care, animal health and the environment.

“I believe that as vets and individuals who work in animal health care, we are in a very unique position where all of these different sectors — human health, animal health and the environment — intersect and interact with one another,” Halleran says. “How we use antibiotics impacts those sectors. Our clients trust us, and we try to educate them about antibiotic use.”

NC State University also created an Antimicrobial Research Network to break down silos and advance collaboration among 300 faculty members across the university.  

Here are some frequently asked questions about antimicrobial resistance and answers from our faculty. 

Q: What is antimicrobial resistance, and how does it happen?

A: Anytime we use antibiotics — for people, pets or farm animals — there’s a chance that the bacteria will become resistant to that drug, making it ineffective. We need to reserve antibiotic use only for times they are needed. Antibiotics do not help colds in people or many respiratory diseases in animals because they are caused by viruses. 

Antimicrobials have been inappropriately used and caused resistant strains because they have been overprescribed by human and veterinary clinicians and because they can be purchased over the counter in a feed store. Resistant infections can spread between people, but it also can spread between people and their animals or their animals and them. 

Q: What’s the best way to combat antimicrobial resistance when, eventually, we all will need an antibiotic for something?

A: Prevention is really the first step to good antimicrobial stewardship because, if we have healthy animals, we don’t need antibiotics. Preventative measures are especially important for farm animals that often are housed together in large herds. For them, that means providing a clean and dry environment, high quality colostrum to newborn animals, high quality nutrition and a good vaccination program. Establishing a relationship with a veterinarian is a big step. 

Q: What does your Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee do?

A: The committee is made up of people in all different areas — pharmacy, pharmacology, microbiology, emergency and critical care, primary care, public health, ruminant medicine, surgery and dermatology, among others. It helps develop protocols for detection, prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and for isolating infected animals, thinking about the health of our patients and also our staff and students handling those patients. We want clients, referring veterinarians and the public to know that we take antimicrobial stewardship very seriously and that our hospital team is  trying every day to make the best decisions that we can for our patients and owners.

Q: What does success look like for the committee?

A: When students or junior clinicians think about why they’re using an antibiotic, making sure they’re using the right antibiotic. But antimicrobial stewardship is way more than just choosing the antibiotic. It’s also thinking about alternative ways to decrease bacterial infection. We are training our students and our house officers about antimicrobial resistance, and they will carry what they learn here into how they treat cases and then pass that along to their own hospitals or their own teams.