The State of Connecticut Department of Public Health PAR-20-124 NARMS Cooperative Agreement Program to Strengthen Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance in Retail Food Specimens(U01) Clinical Trials Not Allowed Project Summary/Abstract The Connecticut Department of Public Health (CT DPH) State Public Health Laboratory (SPHL) is currently participating in the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) Retail Meat Surveillance program through Food and Drug Administration/Center for Veterinary Medicine (FDA/CVM). The goal of this surveillance project is to determine the prevalence of antibiotic resistance among Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus, Vibrio, Aeromonas, and other lactose positive bacteria isolated from retail food samples purchased from grocery stores in the United States This surveillance project is intended to improve the detection of antibiotic resistance among bacteria in food commodities. This application will seek funding to support CT DPH SPHL’s participation in the NARMS retail meat surveillance program including designated personnel who will be responsible for surveillance activities. The activities in this surveillance project include a) collecting and processing 20 retail meat samples from pre-selected grocery stores throughout Connecticut twice a month for a total of 40 samples, samples include 10 chicken, 10 ground turkey, 10 ground beef, and 10 retail pork (ground or chops); (b) purchasing 8 seafood samples once a month from the same stores the retail meat is collected. Samples include 2 raw shrimp, 3 raw salmon and 3 raw tilapias; (c) performing all phases of microbiological testing including initial enrichments, secondary enrichments and culture testing for the identification of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli and Enterococcus isolates from retail meat samples and performing initial enrichments followed by culture testing for the isolation of Vibrio, Enterococcus, Aeromonas and other lactose positive bacteria from seafood samples. All testing is performed following protocols provided by FDA/CVM; (d) entering all sample information and results into the electronic NARMS data sheets and the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS); (e) shipping all isolates monthly to FDA/CVM; (f) submitting all required NARMS electronic data sheets to FDA monthly; (g) performing necessary quality assurance/quality control functions; (h) submitting Salmonella, Campylobacter, and primary Escherichia coli isolates to the CT DPH SPHL Advanced Molecular Detection (AMD) section for whole genome sequencing (WGS); (i) AMD section submits sequences to NCBI and uploads to PulseNet monthly. Clusters of 2 or more WGS-closely related isolates, clinical or clinical and food, (local or multistate involving CT) prompt same-day notification from State Laboratory to CT epidemiologists to facilitate a rapid and complete investigation. The CT DPH SPHL looks forward to participation in this program to provi...