Following the emergence of swine influenza A(H3N2) variant (v) viruses with sporadic human infections in North America, ECDC and the Community Network of Reference Laboratories (CNRL) disseminated a questionnaire to explore the RT-PCR capability of influenza reference laboratories in EU/EEA countries to detect A(H3N2)v viruses in their day-to-day diagnostics and to subtype them as swine-origin variant viruses.
The third external quality assurance scheme for Salmonella typing, launched in November 2010, assessed whether typing of Salmonella strains by different laboratories within and outside the European Union was carried out uniformly and whether comparable results could be obtained.
The results of two, as yet unpublished, investigations of laboratory-induced genetic changes in avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses have been reported to have found that a surprisingly few number of changes make the viruses transmissible between ferrets, the most commonly used model for the way influenza behaves in humans. The possibility that this could have resulted in the development in laboratories of A(H5N1) influenza viruses transmissible between humans has caused concern for public safety and generated unusually high levels of debate in the scientific community. This report summarises and explains the complex public health and scientific issues around these developments including the positive and negative aspects of some of the responses that have been proposed internationally.
This report, originally published by WHO/Europe, summarizes ECDC and WHO/Europe's first joint influenza surveillance meeting, held on 7-9 June 2011 and hosted by the Slovenian Ministry of Health.
This report describes the standardised laboratory protocol for molecular subtyping of Salmonella enterica serotype Typhimurium. It is based on the 5-locus multiple-locus variable-number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) method.
Thirty-five laboratories of the Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses Network (FWD-Net), among them 28 from EU/EEA countries, participated in the second international external quality assurance (EQA) scheme for the typing of Salmonella.