Since the ECDC and EFSA joint rapid outbreak assessment was published on 7 March 2017, six EU Member States (Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom) have reported 50 confirmed and 12 probable new cases associated with the multi-country outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis phage type 8 infections (MLVA profiles 2-9-7-3-2 and 2-9-6-3-2) ongoing in the EU/EEA. In addition, twelve probable cases have been reclassified as confirmed.
Almost 1 in 10 people worldwide fall ill every year after eating contaminated food which commonly causes bacterial diarrhoea, resulting in 230 000 deaths each year.
On the 13-14 October 2014, the first Coordination Committee meeting for ECDC’s Food- and Waterborne Diseases and Zoonoses (FWD) Network took place in Stockholm.
ECDC is supporting a large number of targeted External Quality Assessment (EQA) schemes with voluntary participation by reference or primary laboratories, which are active members of EU surveillance networks
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.
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.
This workshop on AMR in Salmonella and Campylobacter was arranged in cooperation with the FWD Network and the EU reference laboratory for antimicrobial resistance network.