Antibiotic resistance is one of the foremost global health challenges. Surveillance is an essential component of a coordinated national strategy to combat antimicrobial resistant bacteria. The year 2016 marks the 20th anniversary of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS). This interagency public health surveillance system is a collaborative effort of the USDA, CDC, and FDA that tracks antibiotic resistance in foodborne bacteria. In its twenty years of work, NARMS has provided foundational data for understanding the burden of resistant enteric infections and has described trends in resistance that has been pivotal for regulatory decision making. In the process, detailed microbial data for over 160,000 bacterial strains has been placed in the public domain, for use by others. In addition, NARMS scientist have made substantial contributions to advance the field of resistance surveillance, developing the first methods for monitoring antibiotic resistance in Campylobacter spp., publishing the largest studies on the use of whole genome sequence data for predicting resistance, and developing molecular assays to help associate resistant bacteria with their source, while also supporting international efforts to build surveillance capacity around the world. With new rules governing the use of antibiotics in food animals beginning in 2017, NARMS will continue its work by monitoring the impact on resistance of this and other interventions. New advanced DNA sequencing technologies are greatly enhancing the data being generated in NARMS. The goal of this symposium is to present the past, present, and future of NARMS, with the aim to illustrate its role in protecting public health and the potential advances made possible by new approaches to surveillance.

Presentations