5^th Meeting of the ad hoc Panel on technical requirements for laboratories

La Marsa, TN, 2007-02-19/21

The 5^th  Meeting of the ad hoc Panel on technical requirements for laboratories was held near Tunis on 2006-02-19/21, at the kind invitation of the Tunisian NPPO. 

During this meeting, the Panel finalized the draft Standard on Basic requirements for quality assurance, and thought that it was ready to be circulated to country consultation. 

The Panel noted that national accreditation bodies have different approaches with requirements for validation of methods. It agreed that a good step forward would be to define what fits for purpose in the specific case of plant health laboratories, and provide such a document to accreditation bodies. A specific Expert Working Group will be convened in 2007-07 to draft documents on how to validate methods and how to perform internal quality checks.

The Panel was presented the EPPO Database on Diagnostic Capacities and found that it was a very valuable tool to identify expertise in the EPPO region on pests of phytosanitary concern. 

Finally, the Panel worked on the programme for the Workshop on Quality Assurance to be held in Copenhagen on 2007-12-04/06.