Antimicrobial resistance: Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines making infections difficult to treat and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death.

AMR happens naturally, but the inappropriate use of antimicrobials in people, animals and plants is increasing the problem. AMR pathogens can spread easily among people and animals.

The Canadian Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (CARSS) integrates and synthesizes information from various surveillance systems and laboratory reference services covering humans, animals and food to present data on AMR and antimicrobial use in the human (hospital and community) and animal settings.

Key findings

• Antimicrobial resistance in humans for most priority organisms continued to increase.
• Antimicrobial resistance in healthy animals decreased.

Pathogen watchlist

Key trends of antimicrobial resistance	Time period	Five-year trend summary
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (Healthcare-associated)	2017-2021	Trending up
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections (Community-associated)	2017-2021	Trending up
Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus	2017-2021	Trending up
Candida auris infections	Not available
Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales infection	2017-2021	Trending up
Clostridioides difficile infections	2017-2021	Trending down
Drug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae infections	2017-2021	Trending up
Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections	2017-2021	Stable
Multidrug-resistant vaccine-preventable invasive Streptococcal pneumoniae diseases	2017-2021	Trending down
Multidrug-resistant Streptococcus pyogenes infections	2017-2021	Trending down
Typhoidal and non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica infections	2017-2021	Trending up