The South African Society of Clinical Microbiology (SASCM) is responsible for the oversight of antimicrobial surveillance activities and it is incumbent upon the society to educate and raise awareness around antimicrobial susceptibility testing issues that have implications for treatment and surveillance data. SASCM’s role in providing oversight and guidance on interpretation of antimicrobial susceptibility data remains critical against a backdrop of increasing complexity in this field.
SASCM proposes to expand on the surveillance data that NICD collates and to direct a parallel channel of information using the FIDSSA infrastructure. SASCM aims to raise awareness around antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), the challenges around AST and how these impact on surveillance, antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The existing surveillance data will be used to present more focused perspectives on the data to achieve this aim.