Infokiri

To:       Operational Contact Points for Influenza (microbiology), Operational Contact Points for COVID-19 (Microbiology), National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory Diseases, Western Balkans and Türkiye Observer National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory diseases, Western Balkans and Türkiye Influenza and COVID-19 (Microbiology) Contact Points for Operations

CC:      National Coordinators, Western Balkans and Türkiye National Correspondents

Dear Operational Contact Points for Influenza and COVID-19 (Microbiology),

Dear National Focal Points for Viral Respiratory Diseases,

ECDC would like to inform you that the AURORAE consortium is organizing an External Quality Assessment (EQA) for SARS-CoV-2 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). We are pleased to invite your laboratory to participate in this upcoming EQA.
This EQA aims to evaluate and support the quality of molecular diagnostics across laboratories in Europe.

Mandatory tasks for this EQA will be the molecular detection of SARS-CoV-2 and RSV samples as well as RSV typing (A/B).
As a voluntary tasks we ask participants to perform variant/lineage determination (e.g. via sequencing).

Key Details:

• Registration Deadline: 12 March 2025

• EQA Panel Shipment: Week of 24 March 2025

• Registration Link: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/Registration_AURORAE2025EQA

• Deadline for results submission: 30 May 2025

By participating, your laboratory will gain valuable insights into its diagnostic performance and contribute to improving quality standards across Europe.

We encourage your participation and look forward to your registration. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the AURORAE organizers via [email protected].

Best regards,

The ECDC Respiratory Viruses and Legionella group

& Kim Heimsch, on behalf of the AURORAE EQA Team at Charité, RIVM, and IP