Workshop on animal pathogen diagnostics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) testing capacities
Workshop on animal pathogen diagnostics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) testing capacities in public and private laboratories in Viet Nam held in Ho Chi Minh city on 15 September 2022
FAO ECTAD in Viet Nam and the Department of Animal Health (DAH) jointly organized a workshop on animal pathogen diagnostics and AMR testing capacities in public and private laboratories. The aim was to assess laboratory capacity and needs on field diagnosis and identification of bacterial pathogens of pigs, chickens and aquaculture as well as on antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) across veterinary laboratories in the country.
The meeting gathered technical laboratory and veterinary staff from 25 public and private laboratories as well as international agencies and projects supporting DAH and the GoVN (including PATH, FHI360 and TRANSFORM) on antimicrobial resistance. The meeting gathered the views from diagnostic veterinary laboratories on the most pressing needs on diagnostics, AST and data sharing, and suggestions on how to improve knowledge on bacterial pathogen circulation and the most appropriate antimicrobial treatment strategies.
Representatives from participating laboratory provided detailed information about their skills, equipment, as well as the number of specimens isolated, tested and stored in their laboratories. This information will be used to identify the role of laboratories on diagnostic bacteriology and AST testing in the network with the vision of inter-laboratory collaboration, harmonization and eventually integration of data between the laboratories themselves and with DAH. In addition, the meeting was a valuable networking and exchange forum for professionals working in these laboratories from different regions of the country.