Antimicrobial Resistance Best Practices

The International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA) is an international executivelevel coalition of key regulators from every region in the world. It provides a global strategic focus for
medicines regulators and gives strategic leadership on shared regulatory issues and challenges.
Following its mission to safeguard public health, ICMRA adopted antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a
strategic priority and committed its support for the fight against AMR in a joint statement published in
2019. Globally recognized as one the greatest threats to public health, AMR is already a significant
burden on human health, health care and economies worldwide. AMR does not recognize borders, and
with widespread trade and travel, a co-operative and coordinated international response is required to
respond to this growing threat.

Building on ICMRA’s AMR commitment, a new project on AMR best practices was adopted during the
ICMRA Plenary Meeting in April 2021. Leveraging collective knowledge and experience, the project
aimed to develop short case studies to highlight some of the successful or promising regulatory and nonregulatory interventions that are used in different jurisdictions to address AMR. A Working Group was
convened by Health Canada in September 2021 to advance the project. Working group members are
listed in Annex 1.

This report presents the resulting case studies. These examples are intended to serve as tools to raise
awareness, within our own membership and beyond, of some of the important, promising actions taken
to date to combat AMR. These may promote further discussions within our membership, strengthening
our resolve to take bold steps to address this important public health issue and setting the stage for
future collaborations. It may also be possible to adapt these best practices for implementation across
member countries.

We all have a role to play in combatting AMR. ICMRA recognizes that AMR is a complex, multi-faceted
problem, and is calling for a coordinated, One Health response across all sectors, including public health,
animal health, and the environment. A concerted and collaborative effort from all partners is essential
to ensuring our success in addressing this threat to our health, economies and security. Lives around the
world depend on it.

Download the report