ASK network for antimicrobial resistance in seafood as common ground for knowledge exchange

The project entitled “AMR in seafood as common ground for knowledge exchange and risk assessment” (ASK) has been conducted with five partner organizations (Anses, IMR, Cefas, DTU, IZSUM) that expressed interest to join and build a consortium according to their capacity and technical expertise in the field of AMR in seafood. As there was no consensus established yet on what, where and how to undertake AMR surveillance in seafood, the objective of ASK was to i) share between partners, knowledge and expertise on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in seafood, ii) propose approaches of methodology and guidelines for collecting AMR data in seafood, iii) unravel knowledge gaps for conducting an accurate risk assessment analysis (RA), including the data needed for identification and characterization of the hazard. In order to approach these three main objectives, a workshop was organized to gather a group of pathfinder experts, comprising risk assessors, microbiologists and molecular biologists.  

The prevalence of AMR bacteria in seafood is of increasing importance as aquaculture production and seafood consumption are growing worldwide. Despite the fact that current data origin from studies that were non-consistent in methods, multidrug-resistant bacteria of clinical importance have been identified in seafood. This included bivalves from several countries, but in particular seafood imported from Southeast Asian countries showed high occurrence of AMR, and should be investigated further. Regarding the aim to estimate the risk for consumers, two main hazards can be identified – the direct hazard posed by ingestion of seafood contaminated by zoonotic, antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, and the indirect one posed by the presence of AMR determinants in commensal bacteria of seafood, that may be transferred to the microbiota of consumers including potentially pathogenic isolates. To estimate the risk for consumers, seafood must be sampled as close to the consumer as possible and sampling in term of type and number of samples should be representative of consumption of the human population. In the frame of a future implementation of monitoring, systematic random sampling at retail may be the best choice. The outcome from the ASK project highlights the need to maintain such a network to provide more standardized data on AMR in seafood in order to make a well-founded statement on the situation in this sector. Such baseline monitoring would allow risk assessment analysis at the relevant consumer stage. Future data from seafood should be compared to human data, and other animal and environmental sectors in the frame of One Health approach.