This report summarizes national-level estimates of antimicrobial sales for food-producing animals in Bangladesh in 2023. The primary objective was to quantify the volume and patterns of antimicrobials sold for veterinary use to provide evidence for national policy decisions, including measures aligned with Bangladesh's National action plan on antimicrobial resistance.
Data collection and quantity calculations used the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) animal antimicrobial use calculation module. The authors collected information on the overall amount of antimicrobials sold for use in food-producing animals and disaggregated sales by antimicrobial class, active molecule and route of administration. The abstract provides these aggregate results and the tool used for calculation; further methodological details beyond this were not reported in the source abstract.
In 2023, a total of 475,750 kg of antimicrobials were sold for use in food-producing animals in Bangladesh. These sales were distributed across 301 products and involved 38 active molecules.
The vast majority of sold antimicrobials were intended for oral administration, which represented 95.91% of total antimicrobial mass sold (456,301 kg out of 475,750 kg). The abstract does not provide a detailed breakdown of other administration routes by percentage or mass beyond noting the dominance of oral formulations.
By weight, the most-sold antimicrobial classes were:
The abstract reports these two classes as the top sellers; it does not list the full distribution for all classes in the text of the abstract.
Eight active molecules accounted for a large majority of the national sales by weight. The following agents—chlortetracycline, neomycin, ceftriaxone, oxytetracycline, metronidazole, sulfamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin and enrofloxacin—together represented 79.34% of the total antimicrobial sale (377,438 kg of 475,749 kg reported). The source abstract lists these molecules as the principal contributors to national sales but does not provide an itemized kilogram amount for each molecule in the abstract itself.
Just over one fifth of antimicrobials sold for veterinary use in 2023 belonged to classes that the World Health Organization designates as highest priority critically important antimicrobials for human medicine. The classes specified in the abstract include:
The abstract reports the proportion overall (slightly more than 20%) but does not provide the exact kilogram value for this subset.
The reported sales patterns indicate substantial antimicrobial use in food-producing animals in Bangladesh in 2023, with heavy reliance on oral products and dominant contributions from tetracyclines and aminoglycosides. The presence of a sizeable share of agents from classes considered highest priority critically important for humans highlights potential public health concerns related to antimicrobial resistance.
The authors conclude that findings point to antimicrobial overuse and misuse in the veterinary sector and underscore the need for policy interventions to combat antimicrobial resistance. The results are presented as baseline data to support Bangladesh’s National action plan on antimicrobial resistance and to guide evidence-based policy development and strengthening of antimicrobial stewardship in the veterinary sector.
The abstract provides aggregate sales figures and class- and molecule-level summarization but does not report several details in the abstract itself. Specifically, the source abstract does not supply:
These absent details were not reported in the abstract and may be present in the full article; they are not inventored here.
The dataset summarized in the abstract reports 475,750 kg of antimicrobials sold for food-producing animals in Bangladesh in 2023, dominated by oral formulations and concentrated in a limited number of classes and molecules. The pattern raises concerns about overuse and the involvement of antimicrobials of high importance for human medicine, supporting the need for strengthened veterinary antimicrobial stewardship and regulatory policy measures. The abstract positions these results as baseline evidence to inform Bangladesh’s national action on antimicrobial resistance.