Generating science-based evidence in food and agriculture sectors to tackle AMR

FAO is committed to establish and maintain a global system supporting national efforts to regularly generate and disseminate reliable AMR data in food and agriculture enabling monitoring and surveillance of AMR at national, regional, and global levels to inform evidence-based decisions.

One of the key elements for strengthening country capacities for surveillance and monitoring of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and use (AMU) in food and agriculture is to provide a standardized approach for collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and sharing data. 

What is the InFARM System?

The International FAO Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring (InFARM) system consists of an IT platform and related FAO activities that assist countries in collecting, collating, analyzing, visualizing, and effectively utilizing their AMR monitoring and surveillance data primarily from livestock, fisheries, and aquaculture, along with their associated food products.

InFARM builds on prior collective experience and knowledge gained by FAO and Quadripartite organizations through the implementation of activities on surveillance capacity building. These include the deployment of the FAO Assessment Tool for Laboratories and AMR Surveillance Systems (ATLASS) and the extensive support on the development of national surveillance activities and programmes through the provision of guidelines and materials.

InFARM is expected to play a pivotal role in assisting countries that are willing to share their AMR data in animals and food for global surveillance. It will act as the bridge for integrating these data with information from the WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) and the WOAH ANImal antiMicrobial USE Global Database (ANIMUSE) into the Quadripartite Global Integrated System for Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance and Antimicrobial Usage (GISSA).

Data privacy will be guaranteed by providing users access to separate private and public interfaces with various levels of confidentiality for data sharing. Members enrolled in InFARM will have the possibility to share data in the private interface (only accessible to designated officials in the country) or to make data publicly available for the international community.