From a clinical point of view, the activities of the bacteriology, mycology, antibiotic resistance and hospital hygiene service encompass microbiological analysis of mycobacteria, mycology, sexually transmitted infections, pulmonary samples and specialised analyses of certain samples. From an epidemiological and public health point of view, its activities include monitoring gastro-enteric pathogens, the monitoring of antibiotic resistance and characterization of resistance mechanisms and detecting Legionella in the public water supply.
In the field of infectious diseases, the service of bacteriology, mycology, antimicrobial resistance, and hospital hygiene (MycoBAC-ARH) plays a major role in the diagnosis, treatment, and epidemiological surveillance of bacterial and fungal diseases. It primarily provides support to all laboratories in the country by offering:
services that are regularly reviewed to ensure the best possible patient care for clinicians,
a high level of equipment enabling highly specialized analyses,
expertise that ensures the reliability of results.
This expertise covers the following areas:
1) The Mycobacteria sector, which handles all requests for the detection of M. tuberculosis and atypical mycobacteria. The department is the only laboratory in the country to perform these analyses, serving as the national reference laboratory.
2) The gastrointestinal pathogens sector (Salmonella, Shigella, Yersinia, Campylobacter, E. coli EHEC/EPEC). This sector is primarily focused on surveillance activities. Depending on the microorganism, the department confirms identification, performs serotyping and antibiograms, and then forwards the strains to the Pathogen Sequencing Service (PathSeq) for molecular typing.
3) The Mycology sector, which investigates yeasts, dermatophytes, and filamentous fungi from all types of samples.
4) The specialized clinical activities sector, which encompasses various analyses such as specialized pulmonary PCRs or testing for sexually transmitted infections (N. gonorrhoeae, C. trachomatis, T. vaginalis, M. genitalium, and urogenital mycoplasmas).
5) The Antimicrobial Resistance sector, which handles a wide range of requests, from standard reference-method antibiograms to whole genome sequencing (WGS) of multidrug-resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus or ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae. It also confirms certain resistance mechanisms by PCR (e.g., detection of carbapenemases). The laboratory therefore plays a key role in monitoring antibiotic resistance, particularly for multidrug-resistant pathogens, by characterizing resistance mechanisms and detecting potential emerging clusters.
At the international level, the service is recognized by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) as a “Nominated National Laboratory Expert” for mycobacterial infections and salmonella infections.
Furthermore, it participates in numerous European networks, such as EARS-Net (Annual Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance) and ERLN-TB (for mycobacteria).
Ensuring the quality of results is a top priority for the service. This is why it has been accredited since 2010. Currently, it is accredited by OLAS under number 1/034 according to the ISO 15189:2022 standard and under number 1/020 according to the ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard.
The technical annexes are available at:
The department is involved in the European JAMRAI-2 project, whose main goal is to propose concrete measures for the prevention and effective management of antimicrobial resistance in human, animal, and environmental health, following a One Health approach.
It regularly hosts interns at all levels (future laboratory technicians, undergraduate, and master’s students).
Finally, the department is responsible for various courses at the University of Luxembourg as part of the Bachelor’s program in Medicine, as well as theoretical and practical training in general bacteriology.
1 PCR ‘Polymerase Chain Reaction’ is a method in molecular biology that allows an increase in the laboratory, by duplication, of the number of copies of a DNA sequence to a detectable level.
