It has been reported that the White House on March 27 unveiled its National Action Plan for combating antibiotic-resistant bacteria. As per sources, the new five-year plan worth $1.2 billion would include both human and animal health factors.

Earlier in September 2014, President Obama issued an executive order to fight Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria that led to the creation of an interagency taskforce, led by the Secretaries of Agriculture, Defense and Health and Human Services.

The taskforce's latest effort was to frame a plan that has five key goals, including slowing down the emergence of resistant bacteria, preventing the spread of resistant infections, strengthening national One Health surveillance efforts, developing rapid diagnostic tests, accelerating research and development of new antibiotics and other therapies.

The new plan also aims at improving the international collaboration on prevention, surveillance, control and research.

The agencies said in a statement the National Action Plan is being designed to guide action by public health, healthcare, and veterinary partners in an effort to address urgent and serious drug-resistant threats that affect people in US and across the world.

"By 2020, implementation of the National Action Plan will lead to major reductions in the incidence of urgent and serious threats, including Carbapenem-Resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), and Clostridium difficile", it added.

The National Action Plan highlights FDA's Guidance for Industry 209 and 213 that will eliminate the use of medically important antibiotics used for growth in food-producing animals.

The plan also calls on FDA to evaluate the adoption of the proposed changes under guidance 213. As the veterinary community, farmers and ranchers prepare for the final rule relating to guidance 213 and changes to veterinary feed directive rules, the major concern is the amount of training and education that will be necessary to ensure the rules are implemented.