Neisseria meningitidis is the major worldwide cause of meningitis and rapidly fatal sepsis in healthy individuals. ECDC promotes the performance of External Quality Assurance (EQA) schemes, in which laboratories are sent simulated clinical specimens or bacterial isolates for testing by routine and/or reference laboratory methods.

In March 2009, a collection of six viable isolates of N. meningitidis of the major disease-causing serogroups (A, B, C, Y and W-135) together with six simulated blood (non-culture) samples for molecular studies, was sent to 27 reference laboratories in the EU for quality assurance testing. The laboratories were asked to perform phenotypic characterisation of viable isolates: serogroup, serotype, serosubtype and antimicrobial susceptibility testing on viable isolates, and molecular characterisation both of viable isolates and non-culture simulated septicaemia samples. This report presents the results of this exercise.