Since 1 August 2019, a multi-country outbreak, caused by Salmonella Typhimurium ST19 and S. Anatum ST64, has affected three European Union (EU) countries, the United Kingdom and Canada.
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.
This report presents the results of the third round of the external quality assessment (EQA) on antimicrobial
susceptibility testing (AST) for national public health laboratories on Salmonella (hereafter Salmonella EQA3-AST).
ECDC is supporting a large number of targeted External Quality Assessment (EQA) schemes with voluntary participation by reference or primary laboratories, which are active members of EU surveillance networks.
A multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis, delineated by whole genome sequencing (WGS), linked to eggs, has been ongoing in the EU/EEA for several years. From 1 February 2017 to 14 January 2020, 15 EU/EEA countries reported 656 confirmed cases and 202 probable cases.
Data on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in zoonotic and indicator bacteria from humans, animals and
food are collected annually by the EU Member States (MSs), jointly analysed by EFSA and ECDC and
reported in a yearly EU Summary Report.