The Public Health Agency of Canada as a requirement to maintain and sustain a national farm-based antimicrobial use and resistance surveillance program in the broiler chicken, turkey and layer chicken sectors. This program collects samples and data from farms across the major poultry producing provinces (British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Québec) as part of a multi-commodity farm component of the Canadian Integrated Program for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS), and as part of a sentinel site-based farm, food and water-borne pathogen surveillance program under FoodNet Canada.
The CIPARS and FoodNet Canada programs and related research on antimicrobial use and resistance and pathogen prevalence for source attribution of enteric human disease cases have been undertaken on the basis of recommendations made by many groups, including the World Health Organization and the Health Canada Advisory Committee on Animal Uses of Antimicrobials and Impact on Resistance and Human Health, to investigate the association between antimicrobial use and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in agriculture and its potential impact on human health.
The Broiler Farm Surveillance Framework was developed in 2009-2010 in consultation with an Advisory Committee made up of industry experts. Data from these surveillance programs will provide information on the epidemiology of food and water-borne disease, pathogen prevalence for source attribution of enteric human disease cases, and antimicrobial use and the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in poultry production. The Broiler Farm Surveillance Framework has been used as the basis for the Turkey framework development process and the Layer Chicken development process for sentinel flocks distributed across the major commodity producing provinces.
