Multicentre by design. 100 hospitals across India, including teaching, non-teaching, private and government facilities.
About the study
Why VAMR matters.
Antimicrobial resistance is a growing global health crisis. Bacterial AMR was directly responsible for an estimated 1.27 million deaths worldwide in 2019, and India, with its high infection burden and high antimicrobial use, is at the forefront of the challenge.
VAMR (Victory over Antimicrobial Resistance) maps the prevalence of multidrug-resistant (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and pandrug-resistant (PDR) organisms across a diverse set of healthcare facilities: teaching and non-teaching, private and government. Ibhar provides the clinical microbiology platform, with the WHO India Office as technical partner and JIPMER as nodal agency.
The study uses automated antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). Automated systems test standardised panels and report minimum inhibitory concentrations, so results can be compared across hospitals in a way that disk diffusion results often cannot.
Source for AMR deaths: GRAM Collaborators, The Lancet (2022).
How it works
Comparable resistance data. From 100 hospitals.
MDR, XDR and PDR, defined consistently. Resistance categories are assigned the same way at every site, so prevalence can be compared fairly.
Automated AST. Results from automated susceptibility testing systems such as VITEK can be transferred directly, keeping manual entry to a minimum.
Validated before analysis. Ibhar's platform applies more than 30 rules to flag suspicious AST results and more than 100 validation rules before data is used for antibiograms and MDR analysis.
Ready for stewardship. Hospital antibiograms and MDR trends that stewardship and infection control teams can act on.
National benchmarks. AMR benchmarks that help detect emerging resistant strains early and inform national health policy.
Evidence
Validated at scale. Cited in journals.
- 100hospitals in the VAMR national AMR study
- 30+rules that flag suspicious susceptibility results
- 100+validation rules applied before antibiogram and MDR analysis
- ~500Kpositive culture records analysed
A few of the 800+ hospitals where Ibhar has been implemented
- Published. Ibhar's clinical microbiology platform, validated using data from over 100 hospitals across India with the WHO India Office as technical partner, is described in Medical Principles and Practice (2025).
- Peer-reviewed research naming Ibhar in the American Journal of Infection Control and the Indian Journal of Medical Microbiology.
- Recognised by the Health Innovation Exchange (HIEx) at the United Nations General Assembly.
Purpose and impact
What VAMR sets out to do.
- Inform stewardship. Provide the data hospitals need for effective antimicrobial stewardship.
- Inform policy. Give national health policy a reliable picture of MDR, XDR and PDR prevalence.
- Detect emerging resistance early. National benchmarks make new resistant strains visible sooner, helping to prevent their spread.
- Share data globally. Contribute to the global fight against AMR through comprehensive data sharing.
Questions
Answered.
VAMR (Victory over Antimicrobial Resistance) is a national study across 100 hospitals in India, with the WHO India Office as technical partner. It maps the prevalence of multidrug-resistant, extensively drug-resistant and pandrug-resistant organisms using automated antimicrobial susceptibility testing.
In the international definitions, a multidrug-resistant (MDR) organism is non-susceptible to at least one agent in three or more antimicrobial categories. Extensively drug-resistant (XDR) means non-susceptible to at least one agent in all but two or fewer categories. Pandrug-resistant (PDR) means non-susceptible to every agent in every category.
Automated susceptibility testing systems use standardised panels and report minimum inhibitory concentrations, which makes results more comparable across hospitals than disk diffusion.
Ibhar provides the clinical microbiology platform used to collect, validate and analyse susceptibility data, including more than 30 rules that flag suspicious AST results and more than 100 validation rules.
Ibhar's clinical microbiology platform and its validation with data from over 100 hospitals across India, with the WHO India Office as technical partner, are described in Medical Principles and Practice (2025), doi:10.1159/000549754.
Bring VAMR-grade microbiology to your hospital.
Epic is a trademark of Epic Systems Corporation. Oracle Health and Cerner are trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. InterSystems and TrakCare are trademarks of InterSystems Corporation. Product names are used only to describe compatibility.