External quality assessment (EQA) is an essential part of any laboratory-based surveillance system, allowing for the monitoring of performance and comparability of results from participating laboratories, identification of potential issues and deployment of resources and training where necessary.
External quality assessment (EQA) is an essential part of any laboratory-based surveillance system, allowing for the monitoring of performance and comparability of results from participating laboratories, identification of potential issues and deployment of resources and training where necessary.
This report provides an analysis of the external quality assessment (EQA) for the antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) performance of laboratories participating in the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) in 2019. A total of 952 laboratories (1–95 per country) from 30 EU/EEA countries participated in the EQA exercise.
External quality assessment (EQA) is an essential part of any laboratory-based surveillance system, allowing for the monitoring of performance and comparability of results from participating laboratories, identification of potential issues, and deployment of resources and training where necessary.
A pilot project was carried out to investigate the feasibility of HIVDR surveillance in EU/EEA countries and to make recommendations for the design and implementation of a potential future HIVDR surveillance system at the European level.
The overall aim of Euro-GASP is to strengthen the surveillance of gonococcal antimicrobial susceptibility in EU/EEA Member States in order to provide quality-assured data to inform gonorrhoea treatment guidelines. This report presents the results from the 2017 gonococcal antimicrobial susceptibility sentinel surveillance.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was asked by the European Commission to assess the risk involved in changing the testing requirements for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and hepatitis C virus (HCV) with regard to the quality and safety of non-partner semen donations.
This report describes the second molecular typing survey of N. gonorrhoeae across the EU/EEA and provides recent information on NG-MAST STs/Gs and genotypes based on WGS circulating in 21 EU/EEA Member States.
In order to explore whether the current capacity for EU/EEA-wide molecular characterisation for surveillance of HBV and HCV is sufficient to be feasible and what gaps need to be addressed, a survey of EU/EEA Member States was conducted to assess their laboratory capacity and needs in relation to the molecular characterisation of hepatitis B and C.
An EQA scheme for antimicrobial susceptibility testing in Neisseria gonorrhoeae has been available to laboratories participating in ECDC’s European Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) surveillance network since 2010. This is the third EQA to be published on antimicrobial susceptibility testing in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.