December 11, 2020

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS), its partners in the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS), is releasing the 2018 NARMS Integrated Summary and NARMS Now: Integrated Data featuring predictive resistance functionality from genomic data.

NARMS is a national public health surveillance system that monitors enteric bacteria and select animal pathogens to determine if they are resistant to antimicrobials used in human and veterinary medicine. The NARMS program helps promote and protect public health by providing information on whether bacterial resistance in the food chain is increasing or decreasing and on the impact of interventions designed to limit the spread of resistance. FDA uses NARMS data to inform its policy development, decision making, and other activities focused on preserving the effectiveness of antimicrobials for humans and animals.

2018 NARMS Integrated Summary

The 2018 NARMS Integrated Summary combines antimicrobial resistance data in bacteria isolated from humans (by CDC), raw retail meats (by FDA), and animals at slaughter (by USDA) to examine trends in resistance to the most important antimicrobial agents. The 2018 NARMS Integrated Summary describes enhancements to NARMS in three areas: new animal pathogen data collected, antimicrobials tested, and retail meat collection sites. Specifically, the 2018 NARMS Integrated Summary features pathogen data collected in dogs by the FDA's Veterinary Laboratory Investigation and Response Network (Vet-LIRN) and the USDA’s APHIS National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) Antimicrobial Resistance Pilot Project. It also discusses a new antimicrobial susceptibility testing panel (CMV4AGP) for Enterococcus. Finally, it reports on retail meat testing as expanded to a total of 23 sampling sites.

NARMS Now: Integrated Data Featuring Genomic and Predictive Resistance Data

This is a new data sharing strategy that takes advantage of whole genome sequence (WGS) to provide predicted resistance information in a timely manner. Genotypic resistance is determined by assessing whether genetic sequences in bacterial samples match any genetic sequence(s) associated with resistant organisms, while phenotypic resistance assesses the growth of microorganisms in the presence of antimicrobials. Genotypic resistance data and the associated predicted resistance are available before phenotypic resistance data. Rather than delaying the release of resistance information until both genotypic and phenotypic resistance data are available, based on high correlation between phenotypic resistance and the presence of known resistance genes, the new NARMS Now: Integrated Data tool provides genotypic data and predicted resistance information when it is available.

The NARMS Now: Integrated Data tool as released in 2019 provided access to data from both antimicrobial resistance testing and whole genome sequencing of NARMS sources sampled between 1996-2017. In addition to releasing data from antimicrobial resistance testing and whole genome sequencing of NARMS sources in 2018, genotypic resistance data derived from NARMS sources sampled between 2019-2020 are now available in an interactive format.

Genomic sequences will be uploaded to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) as they are available to provide access to the latest testing results. NARMS will continue to validate genetic resistance using traditional phenotypic methods before finalizing data for annual summaries.

For instructions on how to explore the NARMS Now: Integrated Data, watch the NARMS Now: Integrated Data tutorial.

Additional Information:

• 2018 NARMS Integrated Summary
• 2018 NARMS Update: Integrated Report Summary Interactive Version
• NARMS Now: Integrated Data
• Tutorial on how to explore NARMS Now: Integrated Data  
• National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System
• Resistome Tracker
• Antimicrobial Resistance
• Research publications on Whole Genome Sequencing and prediction of antimicrobial phenotypes in Campylobacter spp., Salmonella, and Enterococcus.