IVI and Malaysia

Ongoing Collaboration

Strengthening External Quality Assurance for AMR in Asia (EQAsia II)

IVI has joined a consortium with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) (lead grantee) and The Veterinary Faculty at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, to strengthen External Quality Assurance (EQA) for AMR in Asia through the EQASIA project.

Phase I of the project identified and mapped the coverage, availability, and uptake of EQA programs in Asia and provided seven (7) rounds of EQA services and relevant training (2 virtual and one face-to-face workshop) to National Reference Laboratories (NRL) and Centers of Excellence (CoEs) across One Health (OH) sectors in Asia during 2021-23. The report from the first six rounds of EQA has been published and is available publicly. Similarly, IVI developed the EQAsia costing tool for cost analysis and cost forecasting of the EQA program.

The EQAsia project started in January 2019 and continued until October 2023. The project transitioned into the second phase in November 2023 with a similar scope of work and will continue to run through December 2025. The second phase of EQAsia will provide four (4) rounds of EQAs to 33 NRLs/COEs in Asia and support 2 (two) out of 13 countries participating in the EQAsia project to establish a National External Quality Assurance (NEQA) program, provide training in Quality Management Systems (QMS) to NRLs, and build up countries’ capacity to conduct One Health (OH) focused EQA independently.

Countries in the EQAsia network include: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam.