The 2025 EURGen-Net phenotypic external quality assessment (EQA) report has been published

The EURGen-Net phenotypic EQA exercises aim to:

• Assess the quality of species identification by participating laboratories;
• Assess the accuracy of the qualitative antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) results reported by participating laboratories; and
• Evaluate the overall comparability of routinely collected AST results between laboratories.

In 2025, 32 National Reference Laboratories (NRLs) in 29 countries received a package containing four swabs for analysis. All 32 NRLs submitted results. In total. 1,715 AST interpretations were evaluated, and results showed excellent concordance with the expected results, with 1,677 correct interpretations (97.8%).

Overall, the 2025 EURGen-Net phenotypic EQA results did not show a systematic overestimation or underestimation of antimicrobial resistance in the EU/EEA.
Read the report (pdf).