Nigeria is strengthening antimicrobial resistance surveillance by focusing on quality assurance and ‘One Health’ integration under its National Action Plan.

The ‘One Health’ initiative integrates human, animal and environmental health sectors to enhance disease security.

Ridwan Yahaya, the antimicrobial stewardship manager at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said this on Thursday in Abuja at a national technical workshop aimed at enhancing Nigeria’s compliance with the International Health Regulations.

Mr Yahaya noted gaps in quality assurance currently affecting data reliability across surveillance sites. According to him, while data collection is ongoing in the human and animal health sectors, the private sector plays a significant role in sample generation, underscoring the need for harmonised standards and quality control.

To address this, Mr Yahaya  said that the agency plans to engage a specialist consultant to develop national guidelines for an External Quality Assurance programme for Nigeria’s National Reference Laboratory.

Mr Yahaya  explained that the National Reference Laboratory currently does not provide EQA services to its sentinel surveillance sites, a gap that must be closed to ensure the accuracy, consistency and credibility of AMR data generated nationwide.

“This is critical to strengthening the national AMR surveillance programme and ensuring the quality of data being produced,” Mr Yahaya said.

As part of the process, he said several technical workshops would be organised to review, validate and finalise the EQA guidelines for the National Reference Laboratory before implementation.

“A similar approach will be adopted in the animal health sector, where an EQA framework will also be developed to support laboratory quality and standardisation across animal surveillance sites,” Mr Yahaya said.

He further highlighted ongoing efforts to integrate human, animal, and environmental AMR surveillance through an interactive One Health project.

“Under the initiative, samples from human health, animal health and environmental sources are analysed to determine interactions between indicator organisms, including ESBL-producing Escherichia coli and other priority pathogens,” Mr Yahaya said.

He said the integrated surveillance system is already operational in selected sites and has generated expanded datasets.

“The focus for 2025, they added, is to finalise the guidelines and complete outstanding activities, which form part of the programme’s evaluation framework,” Mr Yahaya said.

Mr Yahaya stressed that objectives and methodologies for AMR surveillance in the human and animal health sectors are being deliberately aligned to ensure consistency and efficiency across sectors.

(NAN)