The U.S. Food & Drug Administration announced Aug. 18 the release of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) strategic plan for 2021-25.

"NARMS Strategic Plan: 2021-2025" is a roadmap for NARMS activities over the next five years.

Along with NARMS partners the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety & Inspection Service (FSIS), FDA also announced that registration is now open for the 2020 NARMS public meeting, which will be held virtually Oct. 13-14. The purpose of the public meeting is to share the NARMS 2021-25 strategic plan with stakeholders and to encourage discussion, FDA said.

The NARMS program examines bacteria isolated from humans (through CDC data), raw retail meats (through FDA data) and animals at slaughter (through FSIS data) to analyze and report on patterns of resistance to the most important antimicrobial agents, FDA said.

"NARMS Strategic Plan: 2021-2025" lists the program’s strategic goals and objectives as well as its challenges and opportunities, FDA said, noting that the central theme of the new strategic plan is One Health — a collaborative, multisectoral and transdisciplinary approach to health, working at the local, regional, national and global levels.

In accord with the principles of One Health, FDA announced that NARMS will expand its testing to include environmental water samples — through a collaboration with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — and animal pathogens — through collaborations with FDA’s Veterinary Laboratory Investigation & Response Network and USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service.

FDA said registration is now open for the Oct. 13-14 public meeting and will remain open through 4 p.m. (ET) on Sept. 22, 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the public meeting will be held as a live virtual webcast.

At the meeting, time will be devoted to taking comments from the public, and FDA has opened a docket (Docket No. FDA-2020-N-1764) for additional comments, which will be accepted starting Aug. 19, 2020. For more information and to register for the virtual public meeting, visit the 2020 NARMS Public Meeting webpage.