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.
The surveillance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibility in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) has been co-ordinated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) since 2009. This surveillance is essential for detecting emerging and increasing antimicrobial resistance and making quality-assured data available to inform treatment guidelines.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) covers the period 29 September-5 October 2019 and includes updates on Ebola virus disease, extensively drug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, mass gathering monitoring (Japan, Rugby World Cup 2019), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Plasmodium cynomolgi infection, poliomyelitis, West Nile virus, and yellow fever.