EARS-Net EQA
The European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net ) is the largest publicly funded system for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance in Europe. Data from EARS-Net play an important role in raising awareness at the political level, among public health officials, in the scientific community, and among the general public. The Research Group for Global Capacity Building coordinates the annual external quality assessments (EQA) exercise to support national laboratories in their efforts to improve diagnostic accuracy.
The European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS-Net) performs surveillance of antimicrobial susceptibility of eight bacterial pathogens commonly causing infections in humans: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter species, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis, and Enterococcus faecium.
The EARS-Net reporting protocol defines the panels of antimicrobial agent combinations under surveillance for each species. In addition, the EUCAST guidelines for the detection of resistance mechanisms and specific types of resistance of clinical and/or epidemiological importance explain the mechanisms of resistance and describe the recommended methods of detection for key species–antimicrobial group combinations. EARS-Net is administrated and coordinated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
Contact
Birgitte Helwigh Senior Scientific Officer DTU National Food Institute earsnet-eqa@food.dtu.dk
EARS-Net external quality assessment (EQA)
The overall scope of the EARS-Net EQA exercise is to 1) assess the quality of species identification, 2) assess the accuracy of the interpretation of phenotypic antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) results, and 3) evaluate the overall comparability of routinely collected AST results between European laboratories. Laboratories submitting EARS-Net Surveillance data to ECDC are eligible to participate in the EARS-Net EQA. Evaluation of submitted results are shared with the participating laboratories, a national summary report is shared with the National EARS-Net EQA Coordinator, and an EU/EEA summary report are published on the ECDC website.
In 2020–2024, the EARS-Net EQA was coordinated by DTU Food, with ECDC, through a framework contract.
From 2025, the EARS-Net EQA is coordinated by DTU Food, in their capacity as a consortium member of the EURL-PH-AMR, in consultation with ECDC, funded by the European Commission.
Guideline to reset the password for the EARS-Net EQA webtool
Guideline to get access and upload results to the web based platform
Documents for the 2025 EARS-Net EQA
- 2025 EARS-Net – Protocol
- Test form Acinetobacter baumannii
- Test form Enterococcus faecalis
- Test form Enterococcus faecium
- Test form Escherichia coli
- Test form Klebsiella pneumoniae
- Test form Pseudomonas aeruginosa
- Test form Staphylococcus aureus
- Test form Streptococcus pneumoniae
Documents for the 2021-2024 EARS-Net EQA
- 2024 EARS-Net EQA - Expected results
- 2024 EARS-Net EQA - Protocol
- 2023 EARS-Net EQA - summary report
- 2022 EARS-Net EQA - summary report
- 2021 EARS-Net EQA - summary report
- 2023 EARS-Net EQA - Protocol
- 2022 EARS-Net EQA - Protocol
- 2021 EARS-Net EQA - Protocol