EURGen-RefLabCap External Quality Assessment 2024
The EURGen-RefLabCap project is complementary to the European Centre of Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) European Antimicrobial Resistance Genes Surveillance Network (EURGen-Net). The project aims at improving capacities of National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) in European countries for identification and for phenotypic and genotypic characterization of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE) and colistin-resistant CRE (CCRE), as well as carbapenem- and/or colistin-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (C/CRPa) and Acinetobacter baumannii complex (C/CRAb). Furthermore, the project aims at strengthening capacities for national surveillance and outbreak investigation of CRE/CCRE, C/CRPa and C/CRAb, and improve the availability and quality of European-level molecular surveillance data. One of the main goals of the EURGen-RefLabCap project is to support modernisation of diagnostic and molecular typing tests using whole-genome sequencing (WGS) analytical methods to achieve those respective aims. External quality assessment (EQA) exercises are an important tool to assess the capacity of laboratories to follow their own routine procedures and obtain accurate results. This assessment is done by comparing the achieved results with expected results produced by standard methods, and with results obtained by other laboratories. EQAs may also allow for comparing the performance and accuracy of different laboratory protocols and pipelines for analysis of WGS data. This can be possible if the results submitted by participants, for the same type of analyses, are obtained using different methods.