Policies regulating animal medicine production and administration in South Africa are hindering transformation in the livestock sector. This is since medicines most needed to maintain animal health come with laborious processes and additional costs to administer.
Animal health industry veteran Dr Peter Oberem told that while policies guiding the registration of medicines in South Africa were worldclass, the practical application of the policies was appalling. He explained that the medicine was categorised according to who could administer it, from over-the-counter remedies that farmers themselves could administer, to those that could only be used by vets. The latter included antibiotics, since authorities feared overuse, which could lead to anti-microbial resistance.
