2.2 Improving the Quality of Bacteriology Diagnostics for AMR

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Round Two grants support improvements in external quality assurance of laboratory testing, training, quality diagnostics, and policy and advocacy.

This grant helps improve quality assurance of laboratory testing in Asia. Quality assurance is commonly acknowledged best practice and underpins confidence in the results of a laboratory. AMR surveillance systems must have external quality assurance (EQA) for bacteria identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing, which tests how well antibiotic drugs are working. However, EQA is expensive and the expertise required is not regularly accessible to many laboratories in low- and middle-income countries.   The Fleming Fund grants aim to strengthen EQA in these two critical areas - bacteria identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. Grantees are tasked with mapping available EQA services and establishing and strengthening EQA Reference Centres across the region.

Lead Grantee:

Technical University Denmark

Sub-Grantees:

International Vaccine Institute

Duration:

Jan 2020 - Feb 2022

Value:

£4,247,345

Countries:

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, Pakistan, Timor-Leste, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea

Objectives:

• Coverage, availability and uptake of external quality assurance programmes is mapped across One Health sectors
• Provision of external quality assurance services to National Reference Laboratories /centres of excellence is strengthened across One Health sectors.