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 eighth round of the external quality assessment (EQA-8) scheme for typing of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) organised for laboratories providing data to the Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses Network (FWD-Net) managed by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
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).
This gap analysis demonstrated that there are significant gaps in diphtheria diagnostic capacity within the EU/EEA, with only six Member States fulfilling the minimum criteria in terms of surveillance, specialised laboratory diagnostics and expertise.
ECDC encourages adoption of EU and ISO quality standards for diagnostic and reference laboratory services by its partners in EU laboratory networks and in line with national arrangements and regulations.