5 April 2013: Farmers Weekly (UK) launched today a campaigned entitled 'Making sense of medicines', supported by the UK Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture Alliance (RUMA) and the National Office of Animal Health (NOAH).The campaign addresses the Responsible Use of veterinary medicines and features Gwyn Jones, a UK dairy farmer who chairs EPRUMA.

The campaign will run for six weeks to help equip livestock producers with the latest thinking on medicine use to ensure the industry continues to have access to the medicines that are fundamental to running productive, high health and welfare systems. It will be supported by various online resources including a quiz.

19 March 2013: Gwyn Jones, EPRUMA Chairman and Vice-Chairman of Copa-Cogeca’s Animal Health and Welfare Working Party, spoke about existing initiatives to implement the Responsible Use (RU) of veterinary medicines at the OIE global conference on the Responsible Use of antimicrobial agents for animals, held in Paris on 13-15 March 2013. He emphasised the need for a harmonised multi-sectorial approach to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Mr Jones affirmed that AMR is a serious concern and that it is fundamental to ensure the Responsible Use of antibiotics to guarantee the treatment of bacterial infections both in animals and humans, and to prevent the transmission of resistant bacteria through the food chain. ‘It is important to reduce risks without reducing the availability of necessary antibiotics’, he added.

He explained that the farming community is aware of the importance of disease prevention and good husbandry practices as well as transparency and responsibility. ‘There is also greater collaboration among the key players – e.g. farmers, veterinarians, the animal health industry and research institutes – and public authorities’, he continued. He referred to RU guidelines developed by EPRUMA and national RU partnerships as examples of this multi-sectorial collaboration.