2020-11-27 13:41:09
The extensive use of antibiotics over several decades has selected bacteria capable of resisting them. The latter represent a significant threat to animal and human health. Indeed, antibiotics effective against pathogenic bacteria are fewer and fewer in number, or even non-existent for certain multi-resistant strains. The FAO has implemented a global action plan to reduce the use of antibiotics in agriculture and thus avoid the selection of resistant bacteria. On November 25, 2020, it named ANSES among its reference centers for antimicrobial resistance.
A subject carried by several entities of the Agency
The appointment of the Agency strengthens its role as an expert on antibiotic resistance. At the national level, ANSES is the reference laboratory on this issue. Furthermore, Agency scientists have already contributed to FAO expert groups on the subject.
The reference center will rely on ANSES’s cross-sectional antimicrobial resistance axis. This coordinates the Agency’s expertise, research and surveillance activities on antimicrobial resistance (see box). It is made up of a network of four main laboratories: the Lyon, Ploufragan-Plouzané-Niort, Fougères and Food Safety laboratories (Maisons-Alfort and Boulogne-sur-Mer sites). Other ANSES entities contribute to this, in particular the National Veterinary Medicines Agency and the Nancy hydrology and animal health laboratories. The FAO reference center will be headed by Jean-Yves Madec, director of the Antimicrobial Resistance and Bacterial Virulence unit within the Lyon laboratory, and scientific director of the cross-sectional Antimicrobial Resistance axis.
The roles of the FAO Reference Center for Antimicrobial Resistance
As a reference center, ANSES will provide support for FAO’s actions, working closely with the other reference centers designated by the Organization on antimicrobial resistance. For example, it will participate in raising awareness among political and scientific actors of the issues linked to this problem, in particular by producing recommendation documents to better monitor and reduce antibiotic resistance, improve the monitoring of the use of antibiotics and encourage prudent use of these.
The Agency will also support the development of a global antimicrobial resistance database and assist in the interpretation of these data. She will act in an advisory role to the FAO, participating in expert meetings, consultations and issuing opinions. She will also participate in collaborative research on the use of antibiotics and the development of alternatives to them. Finally, ANSES will organize inter-laboratory tests between several countries around the world to assess and harmonize their capabilities for detecting antibiotic resistance, and will contribute to international training actions on antibiotic resistance.
This reference center mandate will be carried out in line with ANSES’s actions supported by the international component of the Ecoantibio plan, such as the establishment of inter-laboratory trials on antibiotic resistance in African countries, image of those existing within the French Resapath network.
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