New national framework in Australia strengthens antimicrobial stewardship in animal industries

Australia’s animal sectors now have a comprehensive framework to help strengthen the industry’s response to antimicrobial resistance. The Animal Antimicrobial Stewardship Framework helps animal sectors improve and verify day-to-day stewardship practices. The work was co-designed by veterinarians and animal managers based on the study led by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. The corresponding paper is published in the journal Cambridge Prisms: Antimicrobial Resistance.

Antimicrobial resistance is a growing threat to human and animal health. When antimicrobials stop working, previously treatable diseases become difficult or impossible to manage, leading to increased illness, deaths and wider impacts on health systems and food production.

While many stewardship tools exist in human medicine, until now, animal sectors have lacked a practical, scalable way to document, assess, verify and improve antimicrobial stewardship in real-world settings.

The framework identifies 47 essential and desirable stewardship practices across 18 focus areas, including leadership, training, diagnostics, responsible prescribing, record keeping and surveillance.

Lead author, Dr. Kylie Hewson from CSIRO, said the project was grounded in lived experience to ensure the tool is practical and widely adoptable.

“Antimicrobial stewardship only works if the people responsible for using and overseeing antimicrobials can see exactly how it applies in their context. By co-designing this framework with animal health partners, we created something that is not only evidence-based, but genuinely usable in the real world,” said Dr. Hewson.

The framework was piloted across multiple sectors, with participants using it to benchmark current practices and identify areas for improvement.

Study participants have already begun integrating the framework into routine operations and are preparing to adapt it for action at the sector level.

Pork industry participants said the framework itself challenged them to consider and deliver actions that prioritize, implement and demonstrate stewardship outcomes.

“It provides a solid foundation for pork industry stakeholders to adapt and adopt, and in doing so to formalize their stewardship credentials in a robust, repeatable manner,” the pork industry participants said.

Dr. Hewson noted that the framework creates new opportunities for industry and government.

“This gives industry a roadmap for setting meaningful goals and gives policymakers a way to understand what is happening at the enterprise level. Ultimately, it supports better animal health, better welfare and a stronger, more coordinated national approach to antimicrobial stewardship,” Dr. Hewson said.