This report describes the epidemiology of invasive bacterial disease due to Haemophilus influenzae and Neisseria meningitidis in EU and EEA Member States in 2010.
In May 2012 a collection of five strains of Haemophilus spp was sent to 28 participating reference laboratories in the IBD-labnet surveillance network for quality assurance testing. The laboratories were asked to characterise the five strains by performing standard laboratory protocols for the methods usually used by the laboratory for: species identification, biotyping and serotyping by serological methods and/or PCR.
The results of this EQA are published in the this report.
The results of this external quality assurance distribution have shown that European Haemophilus reference laboratories differ in the level of characterisation of strains, ranging from simple speciation to full identification and typing. All but two laboratories routinely phenotypically serotype isolates. Fifteen laboratories (52%) performed PCR-based capsular genotyping, 23 laboratories (79%) reported antimicrobial susceptibility testing results.
In 2009, a survey was conducted to form a picture of the availability and scope of services offered by National Reference Laboratories in EU and EEA countries with respect to six priority food and waterborne pathogens: Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella, Shiga toxin/verotoxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) and Yersinia.
Downloadable Microsoft Excel file containing several tables on separate worksheets based on data collected through ECDC’s The European Surveillance System (TESSy) in 2012.