PAR-20-124, NARMS Cooperative Agreement Program to Strengthen Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance in Retail Food Specimens (U01) MD Department of Health, 2020 ABSTRACT Foodborne bacterial infections have contributed to morbidity and mortality world-wide. To track antimicrobial resistance in enteric bacteria isolated from retails meat products, National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) was established to perform public health surveillance in the United States. The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has been a partner with the NARMS program for numbers of years and has been successfully contributing to the data development used in the bacterial illness and antimicrobial resistance studies. At MDH, the project has been performed in collaboration between MDH epidemiologists and MDH laboratory scientists to assure the quality of the data. Retail meats including ground beef, ground turkey, pork, chicken and seafoods are purchased from stores across the State of Maryland and processed according to the protocols established by the NARMS program. The target organisms from the retail meats include Salmonella, E. coli and Enterococci and Campylobacter whereas Vibrio, Aeromonas, Enterococcus and lactose fermenting bacteria are isolated from seafood products. The isolate identification is confirmed with appropriate methods before submitted to the FDA. Isolates including E. coli, Campylobacter and Salmonella are subjected to whole genome sequencing and the data are submitted to the FDA. After all isolates are confirmed and frozen, they are shipped to the FDA for antibiotic susceptibility testing and further characterization.