The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has asked the European Commission’s health department to consider launching applications in 2026 for four new EU reference laboratories focused on infections including C. difficile, drug-resistant gonorrhoea, tuberculosis and invasive bacterial diseases.
The ECDC said on Monday that Clostridioides difficile — a bacterium that can cause severe diarrhoea and is commonly linked to healthcare settings — remains one of Europe’s most frequent healthcare-associated pathogens, and that an EU reference laboratory could support harmonised testing and modern genetic “typing” methods used to track outbreaks.
Drug-resistant gonorrhoea has continued to rise across the EU and European Economic Area, and a dedicated laboratory could strengthen monitoring of antimicrobial resistance — when infections stop responding to medicines — and may also cover other bacterial sexually transmitted infections.
The agency said tuberculosis remains a persistent public health challenge, particularly in drug-resistant forms, and that an EU reference laboratory for Mycobacteria would support countries in improving diagnosis and detecting resistant strains.
Invasive bacterial diseases such as meningitis can cause severe illness and require rapid identification of the bacteria involved, and an EU reference laboratory could support surveillance and outbreak response across Europe.
Other areas flagged for future EU-level lab support
The ECDC also listed fungal pathogens, biotoxins, arthropod vectors such as ticks and mosquitoes, and prion diseases as topics that may need EU-level laboratory support in future.
A stakeholder consultation will be carried out during 2026 with the Commission’s Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) to revise the list of potential future priorities.
EU reference laboratories for public health are established under Regulation 2022/2371 on serious cross-border threats to health, which sets out a legal basis for a network of specialised laboratories to support EU-wide disease surveillance and response.
Ten EU reference laboratories for public health have been designated so far by the European Commission, with the first six becoming operational in January 2025, the next three in January 2026, and the tenth due to become operational in January 2027.
