After years of legwork, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA) has released a List of Essential Medicines for Cats and Dogs in its official organizational press release. Developed by the association’s Therapeutics Guidelines Group (TGG), the document goal is to overcome the dilemmas that exist for companion animal veterinarians in many regions of the world in reaching vital veterinary medicines by elaborating the availability of the drugs required for minimum standards of clinical practice.

Extensively peer-reviewed, the WSAVA List of Essential Medicines for Cats and Dogs includes both core and complementary essential medicines, listed either by drug category or organ system/specialty in alphabetical order and a three-year update. The WSAVA believes it will enhance the standard of care that companion animal veterinarians worldwide offer to their patients with also assisting the regulatory oversight of pharmaceuticals included on the List.

As per the release, WSAVA has been campaigning to resolve global inequalities in accessing veterinary medicines since a 2016 survey of its 113 companion animal veterinary member associations revealed that 75% of them faced obstacles in reaching medicines that restricted their ability to address the health and welfare needs of their patients. According to the WSAVA this is a long-standing issue that also affects veterinarians working with production animals and medical doctors.

In a determination to raise awareness about the problem, the WSAVA published two Position Statements in 2016, both of which were co-signed by many other international veterinary associations and trade bodies. In 2018, WSAVA created the TGG to head its work “in ensuring the adoption of best practices in selecting and using medicines and their responsible use in companion animals.”

According to the document’s executive summary, the list is not intended to guide therapy or for use as a reference for pharmacologic purposes such as dosing, indications/contraindications, adverse effects, pharmacologic effects, drug interactions, monitoring or drug disposal.

The WSAVA List of Essential Medicines for Cats and Dogs is now available for free download from the WSAVA’s website. 

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