Nationwide quality assurance of high-throughput diagnostic molecular testing during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: role of the Belgian National Reference Centre.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateNot applicable. Consent for publicationNot applicable. Competing interestsT.P. is an employee of the GSK group of companies and reports ownership of GSK shares. C.V. is an employee of UCB Pharma and reports ownership of company shares. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests. Competing interests T.P. is an employee of the GSK group of companies and reports ownership of GSK shares. C.V. is an employee of UCB Pharma and reports ownership of company shares. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests."

"Funding UZ/KU Leuven, as National Reference Centre for Respiratory Pathogens, is supported by Sciensano and the Federal Public Service Public Health, which are gratefully acknowledged. The national and federal platform laboratories were compensated for COVID-19 testing by the Federal Public Service Public Health. The sequencing capacity was supported in part by a COVID19 research grant of Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek/Research Foundation Flanders (G0H4420N) granted to P.M. and E.A.."