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This joint report, produced by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), aims to give a short summary of reported Shiga toxin/verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) prevalence and incidence in humans, food and animals.

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.

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.

This report presents the results of the second round of the external quality assurance scheme for typing of verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli.

Following the emergence of swine influenza A(H3N2) variant (v) viruses with sporadic human infections in North America, the Community Network of Reference Laboratories (CNRL) and the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency completed an exercise to assess the CNRL’s capability to detect novel reassortant and circulating triple reassortant swine viruses (TRA) in humans.

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.

In 2009, a survey was conducted to form a picture of the availability and scope of services offered by National Reference Laboratories in EU and EEA countries with respect to six priority food and waterborne pathogens: Campylobacter, Listeria, Salmonella, Shigella, Shiga toxin/verotoxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC/VTEC) and Yersinia.

​This report analyses the availability and effectiveness of different types of antitoxins to neutralise type F botulism. A literature review was performed in consultation with the European Medicines Agency.