About NARMS

How does NARMS do it?

Participating health departments forward every twentieth non-Typhi Salmonella isolate, every Salmonella Typhi, every twentieth Shigella isolate, and every twentieth E. coli O157 isolate received at their public health laboratories to CDC for susceptibility testing. Susceptibility testing involves the determination of the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) for 17 antimicrobial agents: amikacin, ampicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, apramycin, cefoxitin, ceftiofur, ceftriaxone, cephalothin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, imipenem, kanamycin, nalidixic acid, streptomycin, sulfamethoxazole, tetracycline, and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. The FoodNet sites (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, New Mexico, Oregon and Tennessee) also send one Campylobacter isolate each week to CDC. Susceptibility testing of Campylobacter is performed to determine the MICs for eight antimicrobial agents: azithromycin, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, clindamycin, erythromycin, gentamicin, nalidixic acid and tetracycline.

Why are NARMS Data Useful?

Because NARMS data have been collected continually since 1996, trend analysis is possible; this can provide useful information about patterns of emerging resistance, which in turn can guide mitigation efforts. NARMS data may also be an asset to outbreak investigations. Because antimicrobial use in food-producing animals may result in antimicrobial resistance which can be transmitted to humans through the food supply, antimicrobial resistance data from humans are important for the development of public health regulatory policy for the use of drugs in food-producing animals.

What is CDC's Emerging Infections Program?

In the early 1990's, the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine published a report which emphasized the ongoing threat of emerging infectious diseases, and CDC developed a strategy to respond to this threat. A central feature of this strategy was the establishment of the Emerging Infections Program (EIP) in 7 sites across the United States. The goals of the EIP network are to improve national surveillance for new and emerging infectious diseases, conduct applied epidemiologic and laboratory research, develop prevention and control measures, and strengthen the national public health infastructure.