This report collects all COVID-19 long-term care facilities (LTCF) data reported to ECDC from 2021 and concludes the EU/EEA LTCF COVID-19 specific surveillance data collection from 2021-2023.
This issue of the ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR) the period 21-27 January 2024 and includes updates on SARS-CoV-2, influenza, cholera, chikungunya, dengue and zika.
External quality assessment (EQA) is an essential part of any laboratory-based surveillance system, allowing for the monitoring of performance and comparability of results from participating laboratories, identification of potential issues and deployment of resources and training where necessary.
External quality assessment (EQA) is an essential part of any laboratory-based surveillance system, allowing for the monitoring of performance and comparability of results from participating laboratories, identification of potential issues and deployment of resources and training where necessary.
ECDC has worked with EU/EEA countries to develop a methodology for regular national reporting of existing national surveillance data on COVID-19 in LTCFs, aiming for maximum feasibility. This is to enable ECDC to communicate timely information on epidemiological trends of COVID-19 in LTCFs, in support of national and EU/EEA-level preparedness and response activities.
Rapid risk/outbreaks assessment aim at supporting the countries and the European Commission in their preparedness and response to a public health threat. They provide a timely summary and risk assessment of a public health threat for EU/EEA countries related to a specific event. They also include potential options for response. As outbreaks or public health events develop, ECDC may issue updated risk assessments.
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.