Pharmaceutical use in Norwegian fish farming in 2001-2007

Published 28.03.2008 , updated: 06.02.2009, 10:32

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has published an overview of sales of various drugs used in fish breeding in Norway from 2001-2007. The sales are shown in kilograms of active ingredient; antibacterials, anaesthetics, anthelmintics and treatments for sea lice and fungi. The figures are based on sales from wholesalers to pharmacies and from feed mills to breeders.

After an increase in sales of antibacterials from 2002-2006, sales in 2007 returned to levels seen in 2001. Prescription-based statistics from the Norwegian Food Safety Authority for the period 2000-2006 show that this increase can be blamed on new breeding species, especially cod. However, the increase in use for cod was positively correlated to the increase in biomass cod produced. A link to the Norwegian Food Safety Authority’s Prescription Data for 2007 with an overview of the latest years' use split by different fish species will be set up when these are ready for publication.

Antibacterials (per kg active ingredient)

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Florfenicol	109	205	154	111	202	302	139
Flumequin	7	5	60	4	28	7	18
Lincomycin/ Spectinomycin (1:2)	-	-	-	-	-	50	67
Oxytetracycline	12	11	45	5	8	0	19
Oxolinic acid	517	998	546	1035	977	1119	406
Total	645	1219	805	1159	1215	1478	649

Sea lice treatment (per kg active ingredient)

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Cypermethrin	69	62	59	55	45	49	30
Deltamethrin	19	23	16	17	16	23	29
Emamectin	12	20	23	32	39	60	73
Teflubenzuron	28	-	-	-	-	-	-
Total	128	105	98	104	100	132	132

Anthelmintics (per kg active ingredient)

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Fenbendazole	21	8	2	23	78	27	1
Praziquantel	100	152	232	412	122	145	94
Total	121	160	234	435	200	172	95

Fungicides (per kg active ingredient)

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Bronopol	392	396	422	314	377	492	493
Malachite green	7	8	4.5 (1)	0.7 (1)	0.9 (1)	0.9 (1)	0.8 (1)
Total	399	404	427	315	378	493	494

(1) Has not been used in production of fish for human consumption.

Anaesthetics (per kg active ingredient)

	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Benzocaine (2)	ca 500	ca 500	ca 500	ca 500	ca 400	ca 400	ca 700
Isoeugenol (3)	3	1	1.5	2.5	-	6.5	0
Chlorbutanol	1	-	-	-	-	-	-
Tricaine mesilate (metacaine)	440	827	699	737	960	1216	1214

(2) calculated sales for fish breeding. Benzocaine is also used in human medicine.
(3) Isoeugenol is only used for research.

Source statement

Wholesaler-based Drug Statistics, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, 2007. Data from this source can be freely stored electronically, printed, reproduced and further processed as long as the original source is quoted in every report, table or figure.