Building Competence in Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillanceamong APEC Economies

One issue of special concern now days for public health for all the APEC economies is the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), associated to food animal productions. Considering these in 2015 Chile successfully implemented under the Sub-Committee of Standard and Conformance (SCSC)/FSCF the project CTI 25 2014A Coordinated Research Initiative for the Implementation of Antimicrobial Resistance Control Strategies. A workshop was held in October 2015 in Chile, in order to lay the foundations and economies’ needs for establishing a Resistance Surveillance System in the short term. Awareness about the AMR issue and the importance of generating integrated surveillance systems was raised during the project. Among the main difficulties that exist in the economies to implement an integrated AMR surveillance program and the actions that should be taken to accomplish this, a lack of harmonized methodology and expertise of human resources was raised as a concern. A major outcome of this initiative was the enhancing of the skills and knowledge in the field of AMR susceptibility testing in samples from food chain for their surveillance. Thus, the technical competences of the scientific and policy makers were also strengthened. Other results were the creation of a network among system stakeholders, scientists, regulators and policy makers working in the laboratory area of AMR from different economies with the aim of increasing networking initiatives and future collaboration, especially for developing economies in the APEC region that could help in the future to more targeting collaboration between APEC economies and the identification of the state of development in AMR surveillance through the food chain in APEC economies through a conducted survey was established and will help to prioritize future endeavors and collaboration in this area. This project show how collaboration among different government’s areas (Agriculture and Health) can collaborate with a University in the development of strategies for actions against AMR.