“People’s medicine is taken by the patients only, while veterinary drugs have been taken by everybody.” In recent years, the misapplication and illegal use of veterinary medicines and the use of contraband medicines has resulted in residues that are harmful to the health of animals and human beings. The correct use of antibiotics is now an important part of veterinary medicine and requires veterinarians to focus on the problem of residues. They need to be fully aware of how to use drugs correctly and properly and to control their own behavior when using and prescribing drugs.

After careful preparation, Yanbian Animal Husbandry Bureau (AHB) and LHESP Jilin Office held the Antimicrobial Resistance training course at Yanji City from August 23 to 25, 2008. 45 participants were staff of AHBs from all the counties in Yanbian Prefecture, who were responsible for the administration of animal drugs. They included some veterinarians, animal health workers from the township vet stations and people from some larger scale farms. Among them, minorities represented 67% and females represented 21%.

The training course started with Ms. Geng Yuting, Chief of the Drug Administrative Div., Veterinary Bureau of the MOA, introducing the new regulations which meet the international and national standards and also presenting the current situation in China’s administration regarding animal drugs. Mr. Liu Tongmin, Deputy Head of the Institution of Jilin Animal Medicine and Feed Inspection gave a presentation of veterinary drug residue inspection related to sample collection procedures and requirements. Both the presentations helped the participants widen their vision and acquire some new knowledge and information.

Professor Ju Yulin’s lecture was extremely interesting. She introduced the history of antimicrobials used as feedstuff additives; the harm of medicine residue in animal products; the pharmacology and effect of antibiotics and the physical harm of antibiotic abuse etc. In order to help the trainees understand the content of her delivery better, she learned and used the participatory way of teaching, giving more examples and using questions and answers. Her presentations attracted the rapt attention of the participants and both the lecturers and the students learned from each other, which left a deep impression on the audience.

Aspects of the environmental awareness training could be found throughout the whole course. A more specific and very well prepared training lecture on environmental protection was given by Ms. Zhao Dazhuo, Jr. Tech. Specialist of LHESP Jilin Office, Contact Person for Environment Protection of the project. She guided all the participants to find the environmental problems in the daily work around the veterinary stations and with the animal health workers (AHWs). She also guided them on solutions to deal with medical waste, which also became a recurring theme of the entire training course.

As usual, Mr. Liu Guiqiu, Deputy Director of Yanbian AHB, actively took part in the discussion and asked many questions of the facilitators based on his full understanding of the Sino-Canada LHESP. Just before the end of the training, he introduced the objectives of the training and the relationship among animal health, human health and environmental protection, as well as the concept of gender and ethnic participation, food safety, and so on. His speech added one more nice color for the training course.