Testing the Tests: External Quality Assessment for Nucleic Acid Detection of HSV-1, HSV-2, VZV and Treponema pallidum

Labquality, a provider of External Quality Assessment (EQA) for clinical laboratories, has developed a new EQA scheme for molecular assays detecting herpes  simplex virus types 1 and 2 (HSV 1, HSV 2), varicella zoster virus (VZV), and Treponema pallidum (TP) in lesion samples. The increasing availability of multiplex molecular assays, enabling the simultaneous detection of different ulcerative pathogens in a single reaction, supports faster and more comprehensive diagnosis. Accurate diagnosis is essential, as these infections can present clinically similar lesions but require different treatment. Consequently, there is a growing need for  EQA schemes that support diverse testing approaches and provide comparable performance assessment across laboratories using different multiplex and single-target methods.