This database provides an inventory of the diagnostic expertise available in the EPPO region. Its aim is to cover the expertise on regulated pests (i.e. pests of EPPO A1 and A2 Lists, pests mentioned in EPPO Standards PM4: Production of Healthy Plants for Planting), pests possibly presenting a risk to EPPO member countries (EPPO Alert List) and plants of the EPPO List of invasive alien plants. This database does not include common pests which are widely distributed in the EPPO region. The EPPO Secretariat is maintaining the database but please note that all information included in the database is based on individual expert's own declarations of their expertise. This database had been established as a follow-up action of the EPPO Council Colloquium in Madeira in 2004-09 where the declaration 'Plant Health Endangered - State of Emergency' was adopted.
How to search the database?
Data can be searched by laboratory (Laboratory List), by expertise on specific pests (Expertise List) or by technical auditors or technical experts (Technical auditors/experts List).
All laboratories are included in a table sorted by country. Click on the country name to see the names of laboratories registered in each country. You can access both administrative and expertise details for each laboratory by clicking on its name. You can immediately visualize additional information concerning laboratories, such as whether it has a quality programme, whether it is accredited or offers training. You can refine your selection of laboratories by clicking, for example, on 'quality programme' or any other criteria appearing the right-hand columns of the table. You can also access detailed information on individual expertise by clicking on each line displayed in 'expertise'.
- types of methods used by the experts (morphological, serological, molecular, bioassay, fatty acids or classical microbiology).
Finally, by clicking on the Latin name of the pest you will obtain the name(s) of expert(s). Clicking on the names of the experts will give a description of their expertise and a link to the address and administrative details of their laboratories.
This section includes the list of experts recognized as technical auditors by their national body and the list of experts who perform technical audits for accreditation bodies.
This section has been created at the request of laboratories which are engaging in an accreditation process. A laboratory preparing for accreditation should only use validated tests. When validation data is available the laboratory should only provide objective evidence that it can operate the test according to the established performance characteristics instead of having to perform the entire validation process. It was consequently considered that sharing validation data at EPPO level will save resources and promote collaboration.
It includes validation data for diagnostic tests for regulated pests. These data have been generated by various laboratories in EPPO member countries. The validation data are presented according to a common format developed by the EPPO Panel on Diagnostics and Quality Assurance. Validation data can be submitted by any laboratory registered in the EPPO database on diagnostic expertise. The data can be visualized and downloaded as a PDF file. In this file additional link(s) may be provided to a full validation report (often in the countries' language) or any other useful complementary information.
How to add your Laboratory and/or your Expertise to the database?
Data can only be entered by authorized persons (login and passwords are required).
1) Check that your institute is not already registered in the database (if that is the case, the contact person of your institute will be able to provide you with the necessary codes).