Quantities of antibiotics for veterinary use imported into Rwanda between 2019 and 2021

Estimating antibiotic consumption in animals is fundamental to guiding decision-making and research on controlling the emergence and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in humans, animals, and the environment. This study aimed to establish importation trends of antibiotics for veterinary use in Rwanda between 2019 and 2021. Data was collected from the Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority’s database. Quantities of imported antibiotic active ingredients were computed using the information extracted from the issued import licenses. These quantities were subsequently adjusted per animal biomass. In total, 35,291.39 kg of antibiotics were imported into Rwanda between 2019 and 2021, with an annual mean of 11,763.80 ± 1,486.91 kg. The adjustment of imported quantities of antibiotics per animal biomass revealed that 29.11, 24.33, and 30.28 mg/kg were imported in 2019, 2020, and 2021 respectively. A slight but not statistically significant decline in antibiotic importation was noted in 2020 (p-value>0.05). Most of the imported antibiotics were indicated to be used in food-producing animals (35,253.76 kg or 99.99% of the imported antibiotics). Tetracyclines (17,768.65 kg), followed by sulfonamides (7,864.99 kg) and aminoglycosides (4,071.12 kg), were the most imported antibiotics over the studied period. It was noted that 78.93% of the imported antibiotics were categorized as highly important antimicrobials for human medicine. This study established a generalized overview of the importation of antibiotics for veterinary use in Rwanda. These results can serve as guidance for the control of antibiotic misuse. They can be used to make a correlation between antibiotic importation, antibiotic consumption, and the occurrence of antibiotic resistance in the country. Retrospective data on imported veterinary medicinal products in Rwanda were collected from the Rwanda Food and Drugs Authority (Rwanda FDA) database, in the Food and Drugs Import-Export Control division. Approval to access and use data from the Rwanda FDA was obtained from the office of the Director General prior to data collection. A total of 1,574 import permits issued by Rwanda FDA between January 2019 and December 2021 were screened to extract information on imported veterinary medicinal products. The date of importation, the product’s brand name, the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the pack size, and the number of imported products were extracted from import permits. Additional information such as target species, the strength of APIs, the route of administration, and the dosage form was obtained from the Rwanda FDA list of authorized veterinary medicinal products, summaries of product characteristics, and manufacturers’ product catalogs. # Quantities of antibiotics for veterinary use imported into Rwanda between 2019 and 2021 [doi.org](doi.org) This dataset contains information on imported antibiotics in Rwanda between January 2019 and December 2021. ## Description of the data and file structure The dataset is an Excel file with one sheet that displays all the information in columns and rows. Rows represent information about each imported antibiotic, while columns represent information about the imported antibiotics (e.g., quantities, strengths, pack size, antibiotic class, etc.). The quantity of antibiotic active ingredients (API) in each product was calculated in milligrams (mg) by multiplying the strength of the API by the pack size of the products and by the total number of imported products. Where strengths were given in International Units (IU), %W/W, or % W/V, the latter were converted into mg using the conversion factors as per the World Organization for Animal Health’s guidelines. The total quantities of imported antibiotic APIs obtained in mg were finally converted into kilograms (kg).