USDA Awards $3.2 Million to Fund Antimicrobial Resistance Dashboards
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is awarding more than $3.2 million in cooperative agreement funding to create antimicrobial resistance dashboards. These public-private partnerships will improve access to information on antimicrobial resistance in domesticated animals, including livestock, poultry and companion animals.
The 12 awards will help advance scientific knowledge around antimicrobial resistance through partnerships with the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Cornell University, Iowa State University, University of Florida, North Carolina State University, Texas Tech University, University of Illinois, University of Missouri and University of Washington.
"Antimicrobial resistance is a global health threat that makes antibiotics and other antimicrobials less effective. Addressing AMR is important to APHIS, along with the agricultural and public health sectors, because antimicrobials are some of our most critical tools for treating serious infections and saving the lives of people and animals. Taking a One Health approach to tackling complex human and animal health challenges such as this is imperative," APHIS said in a release.
Data protection is also important to APHIS. Because of this, all antimicrobial resistance dashboards developed with this funding are required to include data protections similar to the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act. APHIS will then use the dashboards to monitor trends in antimicrobial resistance patterns, detect emerging resistance profiles, and better understand relationships between antimicrobial use, animal health management practices and antimicrobial resistance.
The projects will focus on:
• Developing antimicrobial resistance dashboards to securely track the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistant microbes in domesticated animals.
• Identifying and/or developing methods for protecting data confidentiality with these dashboards.
• Identifying data user needs and preferences for antimicrobial resistance dashboards.
• Exploring aspects of data management for antimicrobial resistance dashboards.
APHIS’ National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) collects and evaluates information voluntarily provided by U.S. farmers and ranchers to better understand antimicrobial use in the context of overall animal health. Partner labs in the National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) will be on the lookout for antimicrobial resistance, supporting APHIS’ work to monitor for trends and identify new or emerging resistance profiles, assess the continued usefulness of antibiotics over time, and provide actionable guidance to veterinarians, producers and other stakeholders, APHIS said in the release.
Congress directed and provided funding to APHIS to carry out this project as part of USDA’s fiscal year 2021 and 2023 appropriations.
