The Danish Integrated Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring and Research Programme (DANMAP) was established by the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries and the Danish Ministry of Health in 1995.
The objectives of the programme are:
- to monitor the consumption of antimicrobial agents for food animals and humans
- to monitor the occurrence of antimicrobial resistance in bacteria isolated from food animals, food of animal origin and humans
- to study associations between antimicrobial consumption and antimicrobial resistance
- to identify routes of transmission and areas for further research studies.
The monitoring of antimicrobial resistance is based on three categories of bacteria: Human and animal pathogens, zoonotic bacteria, and indicator bacteria.
Human and animal pathogens are included because they cause infections and reflect primarily resistance caused by use of antimicrobial agents in the respective reservoirs.
Zoonotic bacteria are included because they can develop resistance in the animal reservoir, which may subsequently compromise treatment effect when causing infection in humans.
Indicator bacteria are included due to their ubiquitous nature in animals and humans and as contaminants in food and their ability to readily develop antimicrobial resistance in response to selective pressure in both reservoirs.