First external quality assurance scheme for Salmonella typing

This report describes the first external quality assurance (EQA) scheme on typing of Salmonella subspecies, organised for the laboratories of the Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses network by ECDC. In the EQA scheme, three procedures for typing of Salmonella subspecies were tested: serotyping, phage typing and antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST). The main objective of this EQA scheme was to evaluate whether typing of Salmonella strains by different laboratories within and outside the European Union and the European Economic Area was carried out uniformly and whether comparable results were obtained.