Summary report published as technical document with reference number: WHO/HSE/PED/AIP/2014.2.

"In May 2015, the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly adopted the Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance, which reflects the global consensus that AMR poses a profound threat to human health. One of the five strategic objectives of the Global action plan is to strengthen the evidence base through enhanced global surveillance and research. The Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS) has been developed to facilitate and encourage a standardized approach to AMR surveillance globally and in turn support the implementation of the Global action plan on antimicrobial resistance. This manual addresses the early phase of implementation of GLASS, focussing on surveillance of resistance in common human bacterial pathogens. The intended readership of this publication is public health professionals and health authorities responsible for national AMR surveillance. It outlines the GLASS standards and describes the road map for implementation of the system between 2015 and 2019. Further development of GLASS will be based on the lessons learnt during this period"--Publisher's description.

Globalization of the food supply has created conditions favorable for the emergence, reemergence, and spread of food-borne pathogens-compounding the challenge of anticipating, detecting, and effectively responding to food-borne threats to health. In the United States, food-borne agents affect 1 out of 6 individuals and cause approximately 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year. This figure likely represents just the tip of the iceberg, because it fails to account for the broad array of food-borne illnesses or for their wide-ranging repercussions for consumers, government, and the food industry-both domestically and internationally. A One Health approach to food safety may hold the promise of harnessing and integrating the expertise and resources from across the spectrum of multiple health domains including the human and veterinary medical and plant pathology communities with those of the wildlife and aquatic health and ecology communities. The IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop on December 13 and 14, 2011 that examined issues critical to the protection of the nation's food supply. The workshop explored existing knowledge and unanswered questions on the nature and extent of food-borne threats to health. Participants discussed the globalization of the U.S. food supply and the burden of illness associated with foodborne threats to health; considered the spectrum of food-borne threats as well as illustrative case studies; reviewed existing research, policies, and practices to prevent and mitigate foodborne threats; and, identified opportunities to reduce future threats to the nation's food supply through the use of a "One Health" approach to food safety. Improving Food Safety Through a One Health Approach: Workshop Summary covers the events of the workshop and explains the recommendations for future related workshops.

Avoiding infection has always been expensive. Some human populations escaped tropical infections by migrating into cold climates but then had to procure fuel, warm clothing, durable housing, and crops from a short growing season. Waterborne infections were averted by owning your own well or supporting a community reservoir. Everyone got vaccines in rich countries, while people in others got them later if at all. Antimicrobial agents seemed at first to be an exception. They did not need to be delivered through a cold chain and to everyone, as vaccines did. They had to be given only to infected patients and often then as relatively cheap injectables or pills off a shelf for only a few days to get astonishing cures. Antimicrobials not only were better than most other innovations but also reached more of the world’s people sooner. The problem appeared later. After each new antimicrobial became widely used, genes expressing resistance to it began to emerge and spread through bacterial populations. Patients infected with bacteria expressing such resistance genes then failed treatment and remained infected or died. Growing resistance to antimicrobial agents began to take away more and more of the cures that the agents had brought.

Antibiotics are powerful drugs that can prevent and treat infections, but they are becoming less effective as a result of drug resistance. Superbugs describes this growing global threat, the systematic failures that have led to it, and solutions that governments, industries, and public health specialists can adopt.--

On December 4â€"5, 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a 1.5-day public workshop titled Exploring the Frontiers of Innovation to Tackle Microbial Threats. The workshop participants examined major advances in scientific, technological, and social innovations against microbial threats. Such innovations include diagnostics, vaccines (both development and production), and antimicrobials, as well as nonpharmaceutical interventions and changes in surveillance. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

According to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance is a major threat to global health because the number of alternative antibiotics is very limited. Antimicrobial resistance is a slow evolutionary process that has been accelerated by human activities in health, environment and agriculture sectors. Due to their wide application, antibiotics and their residues have been found in almost all food products and natural ecosystems. This book reviews the drivers, impact and mitigation of antimicrobial resistance, with focus on methods and targets.

As of 2017, the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance continues unabated around the world, leaving devastating health and economic outcomes in its wake. Those consequences will multiply if collaborative global action is not taken to address the spread of resistance. Major drivers of antimicrobial resistance in humans have been accelerated by inappropriate antimicrobial prescribing in health care practices; the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in livestock; and the promulgation of antibiotic resistance genes in the environment. To explore the issue of antimicrobial resistance, the Forum of Microbial Threats planned a public workshop. Participants explored issues of antimicrobial resistance through the lens of One Health, which is a collaborative approach of multiple disciplines - working locally, nationally, and globally - for strengthening systems to counter infectious diseases and related issues that threaten human, animal, and environmental health, with an end point of improving global health and achieving gains in development. They also discussed immediate and short-term actions and research needs that will have the greatest effect on reducing antimicrobial resistance, while taking into account the complexities of bridging different sectors and disciplines to address this global threat. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.

The National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria, published in 2014, sets out a plan for government work to mitigate the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria. Direction on the implementation of this strategy is provided in five-year national action plans, the first covering 2015 to 2020, and the second covering 2020 to 2025. Combating Antimicrobial Resistance and Protecting the Miracle of Modern Medicine evaluates progress made against the national strategy. This report discusses ways to improve detection of resistant infections and estimate the risk to human health from environmental sources of resistance. In addition, the report considers the effect of agricultural practices on human and animal health and animal welfare and ways these practices could be improved, and advises on key drugs and diseases for which animal-specific test breakpoints are needed.

This Open Access volume provides in-depth analysis of the wide range of ethical issues associated with drug-resistant infectious diseases. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is widely recognized to be one of the greatest threats to global public health in coming decades; and it has thus become a major topic of discussion among leading bioethicists and scholars from related disciplines including economics, epidemiology, law, and political theory. Topics covered in this volume include responsible use of antimicrobials; control of multi-resistant hospital-acquired infections; privacy and data collection; antibiotic use in childhood and at the end of life; agricultural and veterinary sources of resistance; resistant HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria; mandatory treatment; and trade-offs between current and future generations. As the first book focused on ethical issues associated with drug resistance, it makes a timely contribution to debates regarding practice and policy that are of crucial importance to global public health in the 21st century.