5.5 Legal and ethical considerations in line with established practices for global disease surveillance and reporting

The legal justification for using individual level data without consent by public health surveillance programmes relies on the concept that poorer health outcomes will occur in the population if such surveillance structures do not exist. Thus, public health programmes including national AMR surveillance systems are legally mandated by national governments based on the notion of a public good, and are in line with the government’s responsibility to ensure public health and safety.

National AMR surveillance systems require data, often from multiple local surveillance sites, to be shared with national level surveillance structures. This requirement to collate data from multiple sources (often at patient level from local hospital sites) necessitates a sound legal and ethical governance framework. Such frameworks outlining best practice for data collection, sharing, storage and reporting should be built on individual countries’ existing data confidentiality laws, after discussion with appropriate stakeholders.

Different countries have developed their own NAPs to support integrated surveillance and reporting of antimicrobial resistance and consumption.

You can learn more about legal and ethical issues in the Legal and ethical considerations in AMR data course.