The European Commission established the first European Union Reference Laboratories (EURL) in 1992 to ensure the safety of the food chain. One of the oldest EURLs is the EURL-Salmonella, which has been situated at RIVM since 1992.

The European Commission appoints one EURL per subject in the European Union. In addition, each EU European Union (European Union ) Member State has to appoint one National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for the same subject. An essential task of the EURL is to evaluate the analytical performance of these NRLs regularly. Furthermore, many EU Member States have appointed official laboratories for ‘routine’ analyses on the relevant subject and the quality of these laboratories is evaluated by the NRL in the member state. In this way, a large network of high-quality laboratories will be created in the EU.

Tasks and duties

The tasks and duties of EURLs are defined in European legislation, in short:
•    To ensure the availability and use of high-quality methods and performance by NRLs.
•    To provide scientific and technical assistance to NRLs.
•    To provide scientific and technical assistance to the European Commission and other organisations.
•    To maintain the quality of reagents and maintain reference strains and reference materials or have up-to-date lists available.

To test the performance of NRLs-Salmonella for detection and typing of Salmonella in samples from the food chain, the EURL-Salmonella regularly organises Proficiency Tests. Fort this, samples with a set amount of Salmonella and/or specific types of Salmonella are sent to the NRLs for testing. The samples are blindly coded and the content is not disclosed to the NRLs before testing. The test results are reported to the EURL and evaluated against pre-set criteria, resulting in a conclusion on the performance of each NRL.  

RIVM role

RIVM carries out the EURL-Salmonella activities, specifically through the Centre for Zoonoses and Environmental Microbiology (coordination and main activities) and Centre for Infectious Diseases Research, Diagnostics and Laboratory Surveillance.

Funding

Co-funded by the European Union under grant agreement project number 101143369. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.