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 of the European Food Safety Authority and the European Centre for Disease Prevention
and Control presents the results of the zoonoses monitoring activities carried out in 2016 in 37
European countries (28 Member States and nine non-MS).
ECDC promotes the performance of external quality assessment (EQA) schemes, in which laboratories are sent simulated clinical specimens or bacterial isolates for testing by routine or reference laboratory methods. EQA schemes, or laboratory proficiency testing, provide information about the accuracy of different characterisation and typing methods as well as antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) and the sensitivity of the methods in place to detect a certain pathogen or novel resistance patterns.
In July 2014, a panel of two viable isolates of N. meningitidis of the major disease-causing serogroups with three simulated cerebrospinal fluid (non-culture) samples for molecular studies, was sent by UK NEQAS to 30 reference laboratories in the IBD-labnet surveillance network for quality assessment testing. This report summarises the diagnostic results submitted by the participating laboratories.
In July 2014, a panel of three strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae and two simulated samples of cerebrospinal fluid was sent to 30 reference laboratories in the IBD-labnet surveillance network for quality assessment testing. This report summarises the diagnostic results submitted by the participating laboratories.