U.S. National Action Plan

The U.S. National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria (referred to as National Action Plan, the Plan, or CARB) presents coordinated, strategic goals to accelerate the U.S. government’s response to antimicrobial resistance and improve the health of all Americans. The Plan has pushed transformative improvements that strengthen and expand the response to resistance threats.

Although the main purpose is to guide U.S. government activities, the National Action Plan is also designed to guide action by public health, healthcare, and veterinary partners in a common effort to address urgent and serious antimicrobial-resistant threats that affect people in the U.S. and around the world.

Goals

The National Action Plan is organized around five goals for collaborative action by the U.S. Government, in partnership with foreign governments, individuals, and organizations. The Plan takes a One Health approach, aiming to strengthen healthcare, public health, veterinary medicine, agriculture, food safety, and research and manufacturing. CDC addresses its role through its Antimicrobial Resistance Solutions Initiative.

The five goals are:

• Slow the emergence of resistant bacteria and prevent the spread of resistant infections
• Strengthen national One Health surveillance efforts to combat resistance
• Advance development and use of rapid and innovative diagnostic tests for identification and characterization of resistant bacteria
• Accelerate basic and applied research and development for new antibiotics, antifungals, other therapeutics, and vaccines
• Improve international collaboration and capacities for antimicrobial-resistance prevention, surveillance, control, and drug research and development

History

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation led the development of the 2020-2025 National Action Plan. It was authored by agencies within the Interagency Task Force co-chaired by U.S. HHS, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Department of Defense.

The 2020-2025 Plan builds on the first National Action Plan [PDF – 63 pages], released in 2015, by expanding evidence-based activities that were shown to stop the spread of antimicrobial resistance, such as increasing infection prevention and control and improving the way antibiotics and antifungals are used. The National Action Plans implement the U.S. government’s 2014 U.S. National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic-resistant Bacteria [PDF – 37 pages] (National Strategy).

The National Strategy required cooperation from the public and private sector in the U.S., as well as partnerships with international human and animal health organizations. It was released alongside Executive Order 13676 [PDF – 6 pages] and a report on combating antimicrobial resistance [PDF – 78 pages] by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST’s three key recommendations were to:

• Improve tracking antimicrobial-resistant bacteria
• Increase the life of current antibiotics and antifungals by improving use and implementing interventions
• Increase speed to discover and develop new antibiotics, antifungals and other interventions

Find more history about CDC’s key actions to combat antimicrobial resistance.

National Action Plan Progress Reports

• Year 5: U.S. National Action Plan Progress Report (published in 2022)
• Year 4: U.S. National Action Plan Progress Report (published in 2020)
• Year 3: U.S. National Action Plan Progress Report (published in 2018)
• Year 1 and 2: U.S. National Action Plan Progress Report (published in 2017)