External quality assessment scheme for influenza antiviral susceptibility for the European Reference Laboratory Network for Human Influenza – 2015

​In June and July 2015, an influenza virus antiviral susceptibility external quality assessment was held for European reference laboratories. This was the third antiviral EQA panel distributed by the European Reference Laboratory Network for Human Influenza since the European Influenza Surveillance Network was established in 2008. Overall results for the exercise were encouraging. Twenty-four laboratories from 19 European countries participated in the exercise while fourteen laboratories opted out because they did not perform assays capable of determining antiviral susceptibility. This represents increased capacity (24 laboratories) across the network, compared to the first EQA exercise in 2010 (20 laboratories).Phenotypic antiviral susceptibility results were encouraging. Eighteen of the 24 laboratories (75%) returned phenotypic results, with only nine incorrect results out of a total of 261 (3.4%).