Consultation meeting: Establishing a Regional Laboratory Network for Antimicrobial Resistance in food and agriculture

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Federal Budget Institution of Science "Central Research Institute of Epidemiology" of the Federal Service on Customers' Rights Protection and Human Well-being Surveillance (FBIS CRIE of Rospotrebnadzor) will organize the Consultation meeting for the establishment of a Regional Laboratory Network for Antimicrobial Resistance in food and agriculture in Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Russian Federation and Tajikistan to be held in Moscow, Russian Federation, from 5 to 6 December 2022. The consultation meeting is organized under a regional project funded by the Russian Federation with the purpose of reducing the advance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in food and agriculture in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The consultation meeting aims to improve AMR surveillance capacity in the region (in EECCA countries) via setting up - in collaboration with CRIE - a Regional AMR Laboratory Network in food and agriculture. The establishment of this Laboratory Network is aligned with the objective of the FAO Action Plan on AMR 2021-2025 to strengthen AMR surveillance. Representatives of WHO and WOAH will also participate in the meeting.     

The consultation meeting will bring together participants from the main laboratories involved in the detection of AMR in the target countries, including representatives of both animal health and food safety laboratories. The meeting is foreseen to provide an overview of the ongoing and planned AMR detection activities in the region, and a forum for discussion to identify common gaps and needs in AMR laboratory capacity of the food and agriculture sectors. This will be followed by drafting the framework of a Regional Laboratory Network for AMR surveillance, i.e. outlining its possible roles, responsibilities and mode of operation.

The Network to be established is foreseen to have a complex role in AMR detection capacity development. It is aimed to provide scientific and technical advice to national laboratories, both for surveillance and therapeutic purposes in food-producing animals and food commodities. An additional objective of the Network is to promote international laboratory standards in the region and the harmonization of laboratory methods for identification and characterization of bacterial species and antimicrobial susceptibility testing.

The Conference will be conducted in English and Russian languages with simultaneous interpretation.