Impact of German National Reference Centres on monitoring of antibiotic resistance

Currently 15 National Reference Centres (NRCs) and 59 associated consiliary laboratories make up the "infection and epidemiological network" of the Robert-Koch-Institute (RKI), Berlin. Every 3 years evaluation of the NRCs by independent assessors determines, whether funding by the RKI will be continued or new applications for NRCs will be considered. Central tasks of the NRCs are (i) the development, improvement, and standardization of diagnostic methods, (ii) diagnosis and molecular epidemiological typing of outbreak-related pathogens, (iii) establishment and maintenance of a collection of reference strains, (iv) advisory service for diagnostic routine laboratories, (v) collaborations with other European reference centres and WHO reference laboratories, if applicable, (vi) collaboration with and support of the RKI in case of epidemiological studies and surveillance projects, (vii) active support of the RKI outbreak investigation task force, and (viii) surveillance and epidemiological analysis of development of pathogen virulence and antimicrobial resistance. The following section focuses on monitoring of resistance of bacterial pathogens of special importance in particular NRCs, especially those dealing with bacterial infections.