Oregon State Public Health Laboratory Participation in The Fda Narms Retail Meat Program

Oregon State Public Health LaboratoryFDA NARMS Retail Meat Program Summary/AbstractThe Oregon State Public Health Laboratory (OSPHL) plans to continue participation inthe Food and Drug Administration (FDA) National Antimicrobial Resistance MonitoringSystem (NARMS) Retail Meat Program to provide information from active surveillanceof retail meat products for microorganisms that cause foodborne illness to supportepidemiological investigation and response locally and nationally. The mission of theOSPHL is to protect the health and safety of Oregonians and provide surveillance ofretail meats for specific pathogens to support this goal. The OSPHL will purchase up to80 retail meat samples per month in the metropolitan Portland area and identifybacterial isolates with microbial culture techniques. The OSPHL will send isolates ofSalmonella spp., Campylobacter spp., Enterococcus spp., and Escherichia coli forantimicrobial resistance testing at the FDA. Timely information on bacterial loads onretail meat and further characterization of Salmonella spp. at the OSPHL will allow ourOregon state epidemiologists to initiate the appropriate public health response forfoodborne illness outbreaks. Additional information on antimicrobial resistance maydirect treatment of human cases and indicate trends to allow epidemiologicalintervention and evaluation of health risk. The OSPHL has participated in the FDANARMS Retail Meat Program since 2002. We will continue to purchase retail meatproducts as directed by the FDA sampling program and process the meat samplesutilizing the FDA protocols. All Salmonella isolates will be serotyped and characterizedby pulsed filed gel electrophoresis at the OSPHL to provide comparative informationwith human isolates. Antimicrobial resistance testing will be performed on all isolates atthe FDA and all data will be shared with state partners.