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. 2022 Mar 29;20(3):e07209. doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2022.7209
‘Antimicrobial‐resistant isolate’

In the case of quantitative data, an isolate was defined as ‘resistant’ to a selected antimicrobial when its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) value (in mg/L) was above the cut‐off value or the disc diffusion diameter (in mm) was below the cut‐off value. The cut‐off values, used to interpret MIC distributions (mg/L) for bacteria from animals and food, are shown in Appendix F ‘Material and methods’, Tables F.5F.7.

In the case of qualitative data, an isolate was regarded as resistant when the country reported it as resistant using its own cut‐off value or break point

‘Level of antimicrobial resistance’ The percentage of resistant isolates among the tested isolates
‘Reporting MS group’ Member States (MSs) that provided data and were included in the relevant table for antimicrobial resistance data for the bacteria–food/animal category–antimicrobial combination
Terms used to describe the antimicrobial resistance levels

Rare: < 0.1%

Very low: 0.1–1.0%

Low: > 1.0–10.0%

Moderate: > 10.0–20.0%

High: > 20.0–50.0%

Very high: > 50.0–70.0%

Extremely high: > 70.0%