World AMR Awareness Week: Doing our part to "Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future"

World AMR Awareness Week takes place from November 18 to 24, 2025. It is an annual global campaign to improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This week aims to encourage best practices among the public, healthcare workers, animal health professionals, environmentalists, farmers, policymakers, the youth, civil society and media, who play a critical role in reducing the further emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens.

This year’s theme, Act Now: Protect Our Present, Secure Our Future, underscores the urgent need for bold, coordinated, cross-sectoral action to address AMR, a growing global threat that is already affecting our health, food systems, environment and economies. Learn more about World AMR Awareness Week here. 

One of the goals listed in the Animal Health Canada Strategic Plan 2025-2030 is to strengthen antimicrobial resistance/antimicrobial use (AMR/AMU) activities. AHC has put together an AMR/AMU Leadership Group to provide strategic guidance in the agri-food and animal health sectors by leading and coordinating activities in relation to responsible antimicrobial use (AMU) and minimizing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) challenges for sustainable animal health and welfare in the Canadian context. We will share updates from the group in the coming months.

CAHSS AMU/AMR Surveillance Network
The Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System (CAHSS) recognizes that protecting the effectiveness of antimicrobials while caring for the health and welfare of our animal populations is one important component of national antimicrobial stewardship. The CAHSS Antimicrobial Use and Resistance Network provides a forum for governments and industry stakeholders to share information and work collaboratively on safeguarding the effectiveness of antimicrobials. Wish to join? Visit here.

The CAHSS AMU/AMR Network web page provides information on Guidance documents on antimicrobial use reporting, CIPARS webinars and other external resources related to Canadian antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance resources. Visit its resources here.

Led by CAHSS, an antimicrobial sensitivity testing (AST) dashboard is being developed to consolidate and transform disparate data into a standardized format. The aims of the AST dashboard are:

• To facilitate the monitoring of antibiotic sensitivity in pathogenic bacteria by data providers and provincial veterinary epidemiologists.
• To contribute to decision-making by the Canadian Leadership Team on AMU/AMR in animal health at Animal Health Canada.

We look forward to keeping you up to date on progress!

Last year, AHC collaborated with its AHC members to showcase the work of dedicated members and partners across the country on antimicrobial stewardship. The AMRAction website allowed to show examples from a subset of our involved members. We look forward to finding more ways to share the work of our members in the future.