This report of the European Food Safety Authority and the European Centre for Disease Prevention
and Control presents the results of the zoonoses monitoring activities carried out in 2016 in 37
European countries (28 Member States and nine non-MS).
This gap analysis demonstrated that there are significant gaps in diphtheria diagnostic capacity within the EU/EEA, with only six Member States fulfilling the minimum criteria in terms of surveillance, specialised laboratory diagnostics and expertise.
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.
European Union summary report based on data on antimicrobial resistance in zoonotic and indicator bacteria in 2015, submitted by 28 EU Member States (MSs), jointly analysed by EFSA and ECDC.
In July 2014, a panel of three strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae and two simulated samples of cerebrospinal fluid was sent to 30 reference laboratories in the IBD-labnet surveillance network for quality assessment testing. This report summarises the diagnostic results submitted by the participating laboratories.
This report presents the results of the sixth round of the external quality assessment (EQA) scheme for typing of verocytotoxin-producing E.coli. The EQA was carried out from January to April 2015, with 29 public health reference laboratories from 30 EU countries participating.