Two multi-agency public meetings have been announced for the week of October 23rd in Washington, DC. The meetings, collaboratively hosted by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), will review the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) and the use of whole genome sequencing (WGS) for analyzing bacterial isolates.
NARMS was established in 1996, and is a health surveillance program conducted by the FDA, CDC, and USDA in collaboration with state and local public health departments. Through NARMS, the three agencies monitor trends in antimicrobial resistance in intestinal bacteria samples collected from ill patients, retail meat, and food animals in the U.S. The NARMS public meeting will be held on October 24 and 25 at the USDA’s Jefferson Auditorium in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the NARMS program’s progress over the past three years, to present FDA Science Board review recommendations for the program, and to discuss potential opportunities for the program within the One Health initiative. Details on the meeting including an agenda and registration link may be found here.
The public meeting on whole genome sequencing will be a discussion of how WGS is currently used to analyze bacterial isolates, the status of the science involved in WGS, and future plans for collecting and analyzing WGS data. WGS data is currently submitted to a public, federal database by the Food Safety and Inspection Service as well as health and regulatory officials. This information is used for coordination on food safety and public health issues. The WGS public meeting will be held on October 26 and 27 in Washington, D.C., and pre-registration will be required by October 22. Further information on registration, as well as an agenda for the meeting, may be found here.
