4.1 Monitoring and surveillance of AMU/AMR

The use of antimicrobials and the presence of resistant bacteria and antimicrobial residues can be monitored regularly, providing necessary information for AMR surveillance systems.

Monitoring is the intermittent performance and analysis of routine measurements and observations, aimed at detecting changes in the environment or health status of a population (OIE, 2019b). In the AMR context, ‘changes’ could refer to changes in AMU, resistant bacteria and/or antimicrobial residues.

Surveillance is the systematic ongoing collection, collation and analysis of information related to animal health and the timely dissemination of information to those who need to know so that action can be taken (OIE, 2019b).

Ideally, monitoring and surveillance systems should consider both sick and healthy animals to look for disease and carriage of resistant bacteria.