Ten years of external quality assessment (EQA) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae antimicrobial susceptibility testing in Europe elucidate high reliability of data

BACKGROUND: Confidence in any diagnostic and antimicrobial susceptibility testing data is provided by appropriate and regular quality assurance (QA) procedures. In Europe, the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Susceptibility Programme (Euro-GASP) has been monitoring the antimicrobial susceptibility in Neisseria gonorrhoeae since 2004. Euro-GASP includes an external quality assessment (EQA) scheme as an essential component for a quality-assured laboratory-based surveillance programme. Participation in the EQA scheme enables any problems with the performed antimicrobial susceptibility testing to be identified and addressed, feeds into the curricula of laboratory training organised by the Euro-GASP network, and assesses the capacity of individual laboratories to detect emerging new, rare and increasing antimicrobial resistance phenotypes. Participant performance in the Euro-GASP EQA scheme over a 10 year period (2007 to 2016, no EQA in 2013) was evaluated. METHODS: Antimicrobial susceptibility category and MIC results from the first 5 years (2007-2011) of the Euro-GASP EQA were compared with the latter 5 years (2012-2016). These time periods were selected to assess the impact of the 2012 European Union case definitions for the reporting of antimicrobial susceptibility. RESULTS: Antimicrobial susceptibility category agreement in each year was ≥91%. Discrepancies in susceptibility categories were generally because the MICs for EQA panel isolates were on or very close to the susceptibility or resistance breakpoints. A high proportion of isolates tested over the 10 years were within one (≥90%) or two (≥97%) MIC log2 dilutions of the modal MIC, respectively. The most common method used was Etest on GC agar base. There was a shift to using breakpoints published by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) in the latter 5 years, however overall impact on the validity of results was limited, as the percentage categorical agreement and MIC concordance changed very little between the two five-year periods. CONCLUSIONS: The high level of comparability of results in this EQA scheme indicates that high quality data are produced by the Euro-GASP participants and gives confidence in susceptibility and resistance data generated by laboratories performing decentralised testing.The study was funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (Framework Contract No. ECDC/2013/015). The funding body contributed to the design of the study, the interpretation of the data and to the writing of the manuscript.S

Europe-wide expansion and eradication of multidrug-resistant Neisseria gonorrhoeae lineages: a genomic surveillance study

Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance and the Euro-GASP study group: Sonja Pleininger, Alexander Indra, Irith De Baetselier, Wim Vanden Berghe, Blaženka Hunjak, Tatjana Nemeth Blažić, Panayiota Maikanti-Charalambous, Despo Pieridou, Hana Zákoucká, Helena Žemličková, Steen Hoffmann, Susan Cowan, Lasse Jessen Schwartz, Rita Peetso, Jevgenia Epstein, Jelena Viktorova, Ndeindo Ndeikoundam, Beatrice Bercot, Cécile Bébéar, Florence Lot, Susanne Buder, Klaus Jansen, Vivi Miriagou, Georgios Rigakos, Vasilios Raftopoulos, Eszter Balla, Mária Dudás, Lena Rós Ásmundsdóttir, Guðrún Sigmundsdóttir, Guðrún Svanborg Hauksdóttir, Thorolfur Gudnason, Aoife Colgan, Brendan Crowley, Sinéad Saab, Paola Stefanelli, Anna Carannante, Patrizia Parodi, Gatis Pakarna, Raina Nikiforova, Antra Bormane, Elina Dimina, Monique Perrin, Tamir Abdelrahman, Joël Mossong, Jean-Claude Schmit, Friedrich Mühlschlegel, Christopher Barbara, Francesca Mifsud, Alje Van Dam, Birgit Van Benthem, Maartje Visser, Ineke Linde, Hilde Kløvstad, Dominique Caugant, Beata Młynarczyk-Bonikowska, Jacinta Azevedo, Maria-José Borrego, Marina Lurdes Ramos Nascimento, Peter Pavlik, Irena Klavs, Andreja Murnik, Samo Jeverica, Tanja Kustec, Julio Vázquez Moreno, Asuncion Diaz, Raquel Abad, Inga Velicko, Magnus Unemo, Helen Fifer, Jill Shepherd, Lynsey PattersonBackground: Genomic surveillance using quality-assured whole-genome sequencing (WGS) together with epidemiological and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) data is essential to characterise the circulating Neisseria gonorrhoeae lineages and their association to patient groups (defined by demographic and epidemiological factors). In 2013, the European gonococcal population was characterised genomically for the first time. We describe the European gonococcal population in 2018 and identify emerging or vanishing lineages associated with AMR and epidemiological characteristics of patients, to elucidate recent changes in AMR and gonorrhoea epidemiology in Europe. Methods: We did WGS on 2375 gonococcal isolates from 2018 (mainly Sept 1-Nov 30) in 26 EU and EEA countries. Molecular typing and AMR determinants were extracted from quality-checked genomic data. Association analyses identified links between genomic lineages, AMR, and epidemiological data. Findings: Azithromycin-resistant N gonorrhoeae (8·0% [191/2375] in 2018) is rising in Europe due to the introduction or emergence and subsequent expansion of a novel N gonorrhoeae multi-antigen sequence typing (NG-MAST) genogroup, G12302 (132 [5·6%] of 2375; N gonorrhoeae sequence typing for antimicrobial resistance [NG-STAR] clonal complex [CC]168/63), carrying a mosaic mtrR promoter and mtrD sequence and found in 24 countries in 2018. CC63 was associated with pharyngeal infections in men who have sex with men. Susceptibility to ceftriaxone and cefixime is increasing, as the resistance-associated lineage, NG-MAST G1407 (51 [2·1%] of 2375), is progressively vanishing since 2009-10. Interpretation: Enhanced gonococcal AMR surveillance is imperative worldwide. WGS, linked to epidemiological and AMR data, is essential to elucidate the dynamics in gonorrhoea epidemiology and gonococcal populations as well as to predict AMR. When feasible, WGS should supplement the national and international AMR surveillance programmes to elucidate AMR changes over time. In the EU and EEA, increasing low-level azithromycin resistance could threaten the recommended ceftriaxone-azithromycin dual therapy, and an evidence-based clinical azithromycin resistance breakpoint is needed. Nevertheless, increasing ceftriaxone susceptibility, declining cefixime resistance, and absence of known resistance mutations for new treatments (zoliflodacin, gepotidacin) are promising.This study was supported by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance, the Li Ka Shing Foundation (Big Data Institute, University of Oxford), the Wellcome Genome Campus, the Foundation for Medical Research at Örebro University Hospital, and grants from Wellcome (098051 and 099202). LSB was funded by Conselleria de Sanitat Universal i Salut Pública, Generalitat Valenciana (Plan GenT CDEI-06/20-B), Valencia, Spain, and Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PID2020–120113RA-I00), Spain, at the time of analysing and writing this manuscript.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio