Third external quality assessment scheme for typing of verocytotoxinproducing E.coli (VTEC)
External quality assessment (EQA) schemes enable laboratories to assess their methods and procedures so that sources of systematic and random errors can be identified, eliminated, or reduced. Thus, an EQA also improves the accuracy of national and EU-level surveillance. This report presents the results of the third round of the VTEC external quality assessment scheme for the typing of verocytotoxin-producing E. coli (VTEC). The third EQA was carried out during 2010 and 2011 and included serotyping, virulence typing, and vtx subtyping. Overall results were good. However, there are a few European laboratories which would benefit from a review of their in-house procedures and protocols.
