The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Regional Representation for Asia and the Pacific (RR) and the Sub-Regional Representation for South East Asia (SRR) has been undertaking several activities on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Antimicrobial Usage (AMU) in the countries of Asia Pacific Region since 2018 to drive the agenda of AMR/AMU in the face of increasing emergence of threat of AMR. One of these activities pertains to organizing series of workshops on monitoring of quantities and usage patterns of antimicrobials used in animals that has been conducted in thirteen countries in the region as on 10 March 2020. The main objectives of this workshop are to understand the prevailing legislations related to AMR/AMU, the state of play of AMU supply chain, the roles of different regulatory agencies and their coordination status with ultimate aim to come up with recommendations for countries to set up AMU monitoring mechanism to address the threat of AMR. Countries are at varying stages of implementing monitoring of antimicrobials usage in animals and are facing challenges such as weak legislations including implementation issues, weak intersectoral coordination, lack of capacity in monitoring the quality of veterinary medicinal products, poor monitoring mechanisms to collect AMU data from other stakeholders including end users, and lack of awareness especially amongst the policy makers, producers and consumers. Some of the key outputs of these workshops include need to review/update legislations to address AMR/AMU, enhance coordination amongst the key stakeholders for AMU data management and sharing, develop simple AMU database to record AMU data, and set up national AMU monitoring system that addresses the whole AMU supply chain in countries.
