NARMS Cooperative Agreement Program to Strengthen Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance in Retail Food Specimens

PAR-20-124, NARMS Cooperative Agreement Program to
Strengthen Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance in Retail Food Specimens (U01)
MD Department of Health, 2020
ABSTRACT
Foodborne bacterial infections have contributed to morbidity and mortality world-wide. To track
antimicrobial resistance in enteric bacteria isolated from retails meat products, National
Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) was established to perform public
health surveillance in the United States. The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has been a
partner with the NARMS program for numbers of years and has been successfully contributing
to the data development used in the bacterial illness and antimicrobial resistance studies. At
MDH, the project has been performed in collaboration between MDH epidemiologists and MDH
laboratory scientists to assure the quality of the data. Retail meats including ground beef, ground
turkey, pork, chicken and seafoods are purchased from stores across the State of Maryland and
processed according to the protocols established by the NARMS program. The target organisms
from the retail meats include Salmonella, E. coli and Enterococci and Campylobacter whereas
Vibrio, Aeromonas, Enterococcus and lactose fermenting bacteria are isolated from seafood
products. The isolate identification is confirmed with appropriate methods before submitted to
the FDA. Isolates including E. coli, Campylobacter and Salmonella are subjected to whole
genome sequencing and the data are submitted to the FDA. After all isolates are confirmed and
frozen, they are shipped to the FDA for antibiotic susceptibility testing and further
characterization.