Quality enhancements and quality assurance of laboratory diagnosis of sexually transmitted infections in Eastern Europe

Can the Swedish new variant of Chlamydia trachomatis (nvCT) be detected by UK NEQAS participants from seventeen European countries and five additional countries/regions in 2009?

“…Furthermore, no countries in eastern Europe were represented. In several of these countries, there are many shortcomings in the diagnosis of C. trachomatis and use of internationally available commercial NAATs is rare [11,12]. Some of the nationally produced and in house NAATs that are in use for diagnosis of C. trachomatis [11] may have their target in the nvCT plasmid deletion.…”

Gonorrhoea and gonococcal antimicrobial resistance surveillance networks in the WHO European Region, including the independent countries of the former Soviet Union

“…The RU-GASP has reported high prevalence of resistance to penicillin (32% in 2010), tetracycline (42% in 2010) and ciprofloxacin (53% in 2010); relatively high prevalence of resistance to azithromycin (4.9% in 2010; but still no high-level resistant isolates (MIC≥256 mg/L)) and even to spectinomycin (4.4% in 2010; but still no high-level resistant isolates (MIC>256 mg/L)); increasing MICs of ceftriaxone; and a high prevalence of multidrug resistance 29 30 37. The WHO in collaboration with the Eastern European Network for Sexual Reproductive Health (EE SRH)38 has also, in recent years, initiated gonococcal AMR surveillance in some additional non-EU/EEA countries, which is detailed below.…”

“…With the aims of establishing an international GASP, based on WHO standards and protocols, in the independent countries of the former Soviet Union, in 2008–2009, the first actions were undertaken by the EE SRH38 in collaboration with WHO through two detailed surveys 25 26…”

“…To improve the diagnostic situation and promote more sensitive isolation methods, evidence-based international guidelines for laboratory diagnosis of N gonorrhoeae in countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have been elaborated. These have been published by the EE SRH38 in English,39–41 Russian and a number other national languages, and have been endorsed and implemented in many of these countries. There is a need to further promote international evidence-based diagnostic guidelines and to ensure that they are substantially more widely implemented.…”

Laboratory support for the diagnosis and surveillance of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in Eastern Europe

“…These guidelines were formulated by the network participants during previous meetings, using evidencebased principles. This approach stimulated direct communication between leading experts from "East" and "West", resulting in consensus documents which were first published internationally [6][7][8] and then subsequently adopted and published at the national level [1,2].…”