Mapped: Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Networks

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)

AMR is a growing global public health concern that has the potential to cause significant morbidity and mortality, as well as increase healthcare costs. AMR is the ability of microorganisms, such as bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites, to resist the effects of drugs that were previously effective in treating infections. This phenomenon is mainly driven by the overuse and misuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents in people and animals, as well as in agriculture. The World Health Organization (WHO) has designated antimicrobial resistance as one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity, and numerous countries have established systems to monitor the prevalence and trends of AMR within their populations over time. The widely used guidelines for antimicrobial susceptibility testing are the EUCAST (European Committee on antimicrobial susceptibility testing) and CLSI (Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute).

Existing surveillance networks

By the end of 2021, 127 countries had enrolled to submit data to the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS). However, 12 out of the 127 had not begun submitting antimicrobial resistance data to GLASS, a body that was formed in 2015 by the WHO member states to provide a platform for global monitoring of AMR. By establishing a system that consolidates the resistance data globally, the GLASS database allows for the comparison of information between countries through a simple search. Besides GLASS, other regional antimicrobial resistance surveillance networks include ReLAVRA (Latin American Network for the Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance), CAESAR (Central Asian and Eastern European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance), and EARS-Net (European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network). These platforms provide monitoring service tools to the submitting countries to track AMR trends and patterns based on the privacy agreements. Unlike other continents that have regional platforms offering surveillance solutions, Africa does not have any such regional network for monitoring drug resistance. Most of the African countries have begun submitting data to the global body GLASS.

We visualize the participation of different countries in monitoring and sharing antimicrobial resistance data on a global map. The data below show countries’ participation in the regional and global antimicrobial resistance monitoring platforms. Globally, 79 countries only submit their drug resistance data to the GLASS network.