This report presents the results of the second round of the external quality assurance scheme for typing of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli. Conducted between December 2009 and June 2010, it included O:H serotyping, detection and typing of eae, vtx1, vtx2 and ehxA genes, phenotypic detection of verocytotoxin/shiga toxin-production, fermentation of sorbitol and production of β-glucuronidase and enterohaemolysin for VTEC.

An average of 78% of participating laboratories from EU/EEA countries were able to correctly O:H serotype the ten VTEC strains that were included in the EQA and correct phenotypic characterisation was generally very high.