a day ago
1 out of 1,000 NVPS prescriptions purchased at merchants
Only 85 out of some 85,000 veterinary prescriptions, or around 1 out of every 1,000, lodged on the new National Veterinary Prescription System (NVPS) were purchased from a licenced merchant or pharmacist.
The figure as revealed by Dr. Caroline Garvan, senior superintending veterinary inspector at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Dr. Garvan was speaking at a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food this week, when she was asked by Aontú TD for Mayo Paul Lawless how many of the 85,000 prescriptions on the NVPS since it launched in January were purchased at the site of a merchant or pharmacist.
Dr. Garvan said that the figure is 'very, very low' confirming that the number currently is 85.
The NVPS has been established under the Veterinary Medicinal Products, Medicated Feed and Fertilisers Regulation Act, which, among other requirements, mandates that certain veterinary medicines that previously could be purchased by farmers without a prescription would now require a prescription from a vet.
Under the new law, prescriptions issued for vets for those medicines would be lodged on the NVPS.
The purpose of this rule change is to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in farm animals by requiring a veterinary prescription before medicines are supplied.
The regulation has led to concerns from licenced merchants of veterinary medicines, as well as many politicians, that vets which stock veterinary medicines would be in a position to retail the medicines they issue prescriptions for, reducing competition from merchants and potentially squeezing them out of business.
According to Lawless, the figure of 85 prescriptions purchased at merchants or pharmacists out of 85,000 is 'not a good start' in terms of allaying those concerns.
The figure suggests that out of those 85,000 prescriptions, over 84,000 were supplied by a vet (although there was no indication given as to how many of those vets were the prescribing vet).
However, according to Dr. Garvan, veterinary medicines generally purchased by farmers at this time of year would normally not be supplied by licenced merchants, even before the new law.
'The products that are currently being prescribed would not be supplied generally by a licenced retailer, so why would they get the prescription?' she said.
'The products that are up there [on the NVPS] now are antibiotics predominantly, which are treating diseases during the spring. They're never supplied by a licenced retailer, so they wouldn't be dispensing them,' Dr. Garvan added.
Dr. Garvan also told Senator Paul Daly that the licenced retailers may be continuing to get paper prescriptions, as not all vets are using the NVPS system yet.
'I think it's important to say we don't have eyes on all the prescriptions issued this spring. It's highly likely that the retailers are still getting prescriptions, but they're getting paper prescriptions because we don't have all the vets using the system, so we can't say they are not dispensing prescriptions at retail level,' she said.
However, Daly said: 'There's plenty room for error in a figure between 85 and 85,000.'
Dr. Garvey then went on to cite data which suggests that, while supply of some veterinary medicines from co-operatives have decreased, the supply from licenced merchants have not, and that vets 'did not get all the supply that the co-ops lost'.
She noted that increasing use of selective dry cow therapy may be reducing the need for antibiotics in the dairy sector, saying: 'It's a real example of the progress on AMR.'
