Unit responsible:
Keeping mycobacteria and tuberculosis under scrutiny
The National Reference Centre (NRC) for Tuberculosis and Mycobacteria is a laboratory specialised in the microbiological diagnosis of tuberculosis and mycobacterioses, and in the molecular surveillance of tuberculosis.
Our goals are:
- to diagnose mycobacterial infections and identify the clinical strains (up to species level) using molecular techniques
- to confirm the diagnosis performed by peripheral clinical laboratories, upon request
- to perform the drug susceptibility testing (bacteriological and molecular methods) for M. tuberculosis and non-tuberculous mycobacteria
- to test the susceptibility of multi-drug resistant M. tuberculosis strains to second-line antibiotics
- to investigate the presence of latent tuberculosis in patients
- to perform genetic fingerprinting to identify outbreaks and transmission routes of tuberculosis
- to organise the annual quality control tests for the Belgian network of laboratories which perform mycobacterial diagnostics.