The Responsible use of Medicines Alliance – Companion Animal and Equine (RUMA CA&E) has launched an online survey (22 July 2025) designed to gather insights from vets, SQPs, retailers and wholesalers about the vaccines shortages that have been a growing source of concern for the CA&E sectors over recent years. The survey will close on Friday 26 September 2025 at 5pm.
Small animal and equine vets and Animal Medicines Advisors (SQPs), plus retailers, wholesalers, and any other key roles across the animal medicines industry, are being encouraged by RUMA CA&E to share any vaccine supply insights by answering a set of questions that aim to build a picture of what supply challenges each sector has been facing, and the likely short and long term impacts of these disruption issues. The anonymous insights will be shared with key industry stakeholders and government bodies and will be used to help inform the development of plans and strategies to safeguard vaccine supplies in the future. The survey can be accessed via this link: https://forms.office.com/e/csZZEFQTut
Steve Howard, RUMA CA&E Secretary General, says: “Vaccines play a key role in safeguarding the health and wellbeing of animals and limited or no supply, which is something that has been reported more frequently over the past few years across all sectors, can have widespread implications on animal wellbeing, medicines use and stewardship. This could include an increase in antibiotic use to manage conditions that may otherwise have been prevented with vaccinations; this is an area that especially concerns RUMA CA&E as we work closely with the companion animal and equine sectors to tackle AMR. Vaccine shortages could undermine the great stewardship work underway right across the sectors.
“This survey will help us build a deeper understanding not only of which vaccines have been disrupted or have had no supply, but also for which species’ across the sectors we represent and the impacts of the interruptions in supply – both in the short and long term.
“We will then share the findings with industry stakeholders and government to help support the shaping of strategies to protect supply of these vital medicines for the future. We will also explore ways to help those working across the industry to support animal owners when shortages do occur, which may require the development of guidelines about how to protect animal health in the event of disrupted supply.
“Our sibling organisation, RUMA Agriculture, shares the same concerns about vaccine supply and availability, and has already completed a similar survey across the livestock sectors which got a great response. We hope to mirror the level of response they have achieved to help provide a rounded picture across the entire profession about the challenges being faced across the industry with regard to access to vaccines. We have also been pleased to be able to contribute to a number of recent vaccines supply meetings held by the VMD and will continue to work closely with them on this important issue moving forwards.”
RUMA CA&E Chair, Gwyn Jones, says: “The negative impact of not having access to a stable and reliable supply of vaccines can’t be underestimated. Our work at RUMA CA&E centres around the responsible use of medicines to protect the health and wellbeing of companion animals and horses – if vaccines supply is unreliable then this will undoubtedly have consequences and could lead to the use of more antibiotics to treat conditions that would otherwise have been prevented with vaccines. This can be a source of much worry for those in the profession who are committed to safeguarding animal health and wellbeing.”
Responses to the survey are anonymous. In due course RUMA CA&E will publish anonymised headline findings to help support the ongoing focus on addressing vaccines shortages.
The survey can be accessed here: https://forms.office.com/e/csZZEFQTut