Udhwani Trishang, Dean Katharine R, Sommerset Ingunn, Helgesen Kari Olli
Norwegian Veterinary Institute, Elizabeth Stephansens Vei 1, Ås, 1433, Norway.
BMC Vet Res. 2025 Jan 13;21(1):17. doi: 10.1186/s12917-024-04460-7.
Vaccination of farmed salmonids has been an integral part of preventing infectious diseases in Norway's aquaculture industry. In Norway, vaccine usage is regulated by the government. There is a need to monitor vaccine usage for both regulatory and research purposes, at local and national scales. The Norwegian Veterinary Prescription Register (VetReg) is a national database that includes all prescriptions of medicines to animals dispensed by pharmacies and all medicines used for food producing animals by veterinarians. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of fish vaccination data reported to VetReg in 2016-2022. We considered the following attributes: completeness, validity, and timeliness. For external validation, we compared the data in VetReg to wholesaler statistics.
Pharmacies reported fish vaccines to VetReg in a variety of quantity units, including doses and volumes, which required us to harmonize the data to a single unit. It was not possible to harmonize the quantity units for nine percent of the records, which were mainly bath vaccines reported in doses. We identified specific issues that required manual editing of the units of 1 percent of the records. We validated individual variables such as product codes and location identifiers using external registers. The 'number of animals' variable was inconsistent for 31 percent of the records. The coverage of vaccine data in VetReg ranged from 81 to 113 percent for the ten most sold vaccines in 2020-2022, as compared to wholesales statistics. For the timeliness, we found that 75 percent of the records were submitted within 25 days for all years.
Overall, we found that the fish vaccination data in VetReg was of sufficient quality to monitor injectable vaccine usage at hatcheries after 2020. We identified issues at the product level, with bath vaccines, and with single variables (number of animals, weight, and species). We recommend that quality can be improved by reporting all vaccines in volume rather than doses, reporting a single vaccine prescription per report, and including a deadline for pharmacies to report in the legislation.
养殖鲑科鱼类的疫苗接种一直是挪威水产养殖业预防传染病不可或缺的一部分。在挪威，疫苗的使用由政府监管。出于监管和研究目的，需要在地方和国家层面监测疫苗的使用情况。挪威兽医处方登记册（VetReg）是一个国家数据库，包含药店配发给动物的所有药品处方以及兽医用于食用动物的所有药品。本研究旨在评估2016 - 2022年向VetReg报告的鱼类疫苗接种数据的质量。我们考虑了以下属性：完整性、有效性和及时性。为了进行外部验证，我们将VetReg中的数据与批发商统计数据进行了比较。
药店向VetReg报告鱼类疫苗时使用了多种数量单位，包括剂量和体积，这要求我们将数据统一到一个单位。9%的记录无法统一数量单位，这些记录主要是按剂量报告的浸浴疫苗。我们发现有特定问题需要对1%的记录的单位进行人工编辑。我们使用外部登记册验证了诸如产品代码和位置标识符等单个变量。31%的记录中“动物数量”变量不一致。与批发统计数据相比，2020 - 2022年VetReg中十种最畅销疫苗的疫苗数据覆盖率在81%至113%之间。关于及时性，我们发现所有年份75%的记录在25天内提交。
总体而言，我们发现VetReg中的鱼类疫苗接种数据质量足以监测2020年后孵化场的注射用疫苗使用情况。我们在产品层面、浸浴疫苗以及单个变量（动物数量、体重和物种）方面发现了问题。我们建议通过按体积而非剂量报告所有疫苗、每份报告报告单一疫苗处方以及在立法中规定药店报告的截止日期来提高质量。
