New National Action Plan: CDC to Expand Global Antibiotic Resistance (AR) Activities

Five-year goals include a global lab network, vaccine data platform, and even greater investments in state and local health departments

Today, the U.S. Government released the next National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, 2020-2025 (pdf), presenting coordinated, strategic actions to change the course of AR in the next five years. Antibiotic-resistant infections kill more than 35,000 people in the United States each year. To protect people, CDC will continue to lead the public health response to AR across the One Health spectrum, which connects the health of people to the health of animals and the environment (soil, water). The new Plan includes CDC activities to combat antibiotic-resistant infections in healthcare, food and farms, animals, communities, and the environment, both at home and abroad.

AR remains a priority for the U.S. Government. The new Plan highlights steps to improve the health and wellbeing of all Americans by continuing to fight AR and address the threats outlined last fall in CDC’s 2019 AR Threats Report (pdf).

An image of new National Action Plan cover.

Building on Success for Five More Years The first National Action Plan launched the nation’s successful federal response to the urgent threat of AR in 2015. The new Plan will expand evidence-based activities proven to stop the spread of AR, such as infection prevention and control and improving antibiotic use. Building off work from the last 5 years, here’s what to expect next from CDC:

Expand CDC’s AR Lab Network internationally, which was successfully established in U.S. health departments in 2016 to identify new and emerging threats. Since launch, it has performed more than 100,000 AR lab tests and sequenced more than 100,000 AR samples.
Support infection prevention and control to decrease healthcare-associated antibiotic-resistant infections 20% by 2025. From 2012 to 2017, the number of antibiotic-resistant infections seen in hospitals dropped 27% and the number of deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections fell nearly 30%. CDC supported more than 5,000 infection control assessments in healthcare facilities to help stop the spread of resistant pathogens.
Assist local responses across the nation to decrease community-acquired antibiotic-resistant infections 10% by 2025. CDC has supported more than 500 local AR experts since 2016 and reported an 18% decrease overall in deaths from AR since the 2013 AR Threats Report.
Foster diagnostic, antibiotic, vaccine, and other novel innovations by funding hundreds of new projects, establishing “learning laboratories” to develop or test cost-effective solutions to contain urgent resistant pathogens globally, and building a vaccine data platform to make new vaccines available faster to help prevent infections.
Work with global partners and low-and-middle-income countries to prevent human and animal infections. CDC will build on the success of the AMR Challenge, hosted by CDC from 2018 to 2019, which gathered commitments from more than 350 partners worldwide to drive meaningful actions to combat AR across One Health.
Collect antibiotic use data from 100% of U.S. acute care and 50% of critical access hospitals to help improve antibiotic use and drive action to reduce outpatient antibiotic prescribing. Antibiotic prescribing in outpatient settings declined 5% from 2011 to 2016.
Double CDC’s investments in state and local health departments. Since 2016, CDC has provided $373 million across every state to improve AR detection, response, and prevention.

Find the new National Action Plan on CDC’s website to learn how CDC and its partner federal agencies are leading the fight against AR in the United States and abroad.

The Plan supports a robust global response to protect Americans, building upon proven successes to improve capacities to detect, prevent, and contain resistant threats. Everyone has a role to play—together we can prevent infections and stop the spread of AR.