The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) is a national surveillance system that monitors the susceptibility of enteric bacteria to medically relevant antimicrobials in order to help assess the impact of veterinary antimicrobial use on human health. The NARMS Retail Food Surveillance Program, a collaborative project between the Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA/CMV), the CDC, and state and local health departments, supports this mission by improving detection of and surveillance for antimicrobial resistance among enteric bacteria in raw retail meat commodities. To achieve this goal, we propose to purchase and test raw meat, poultry, and seafood from randomly sampled retail markets in San Francisco and San Jose, California. Raw meat will be delivered to the Contra Costa Public Health Laboratory (CCPHL) where microbiologists will attempt to isolate Salmonella from all meat samples; Campylobacter from poultry samples only; and Enterococcus, Aeromonas, Vibrio and other lactose positive bacteria from seafood samples. All isolates will be forwarded to FDA/CMV for antibiotic resistance testing. For each product purchased, we will record the store name and location, brand name, sell-by date, purchase date, packaging type, and the country of origin, when available. In addition to monitoring the prevalence of bacteria and trends in antimicrobial resistance in raw meat, these data are vital to foodborne outbreak investigations and help to inform parameters for antimicrobial use in veterinary medicine. These data will be shared with relevant partners and can be used by public health professionals to promote interventions to reduce resistance among foodborne bacteria.
Antimicrobial drugs are widely used in human and veterinary medicine and resistance to existing therapies poses a significant threat to public health. This program supports surveillance for antimicrobial resistance among enteric bacteria in raw retail meat commodities which will serve to improve detection of emerging resistance to medically relevant antibiotics, inform parameters for antimicrobial use in veterinary medicine, and support foodborne illness outbreak investigations.
