The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products

1. Florfenicol, proposed for treatment of bovine respiratory disease also called shipping fever or transit fever, is a wide spectrum, synthetic antibacterial substance. It is structurally related to D (-)threo chloramphenicol (CAP), but differs from it in two fundamental aspects : firstly, presence of a pmethyl sulfonyl group instead of the p-nitro group, secondly, presence of fluorine atom instead of the hydroxyl group in the terminal primary alcohol function of CAP.