This report provides an analysis of the external quality assessment (EQA) performance with antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) of laboratories participating in the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network in 2018. A total of 860 laboratories (1 – 114 per country) from 30 EU/EEA countries participated in the EQA exercise. Six bacterial strains were used: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecium and Streptococcus pneumoniae.
This workshop is designed to strengthen the capacity to use whole genome sequencing of human pathogens for public health investigations in EU/ EEA Member States.