♦ 04 May 2015 ♦ A panel of 9 brain samples will be sent to all laboratories on the same day and under the same conditions. Date of shipment is 1st June 2015. Laboratories which have sent all documents (import permit when needed, and unilateral commitment fully initialled, signed and stamped) before this date will receive the panel. In order to respect the time schedule and to have all results included in the final report, the test will have to be undertaken in the course of June and results will have to be sent back to the EURL for rabies on 1st July at the latest, along with the answers given on the online questionnaires. As usual, there will be one questionnaire for each technique. Participants will be invited to fill one questionnaire per each tested technique. The final report should be issued in early Autumn 2015.  

♦ 30 April 2015 ♦ The rabies EURL annual meeting will gather 55 people. This meeting will bring together National Reference Labs from Member States and from third countries bordering EU, including those from North Africa. On the first half-day, presentations will focus on the techniques relative to oral vaccination control and rabies update from several participating countries. On the second half-day, European (EFSA) and Global Institutions (WHO, IAEA) will present their activities before the diagnostic and the molecular biology sessions. The last update of the agenda can be found here.  

♦ 30 April 2015 ♦ Each year, the EURL is in charge of elaborating a technical report detailing all rabies activities undertaken and their outputs in the frame of the regulations No 737/2008 and 415/2013. The document is available for members of the EURL network (need to use your login and password to open the restricted access of the website).  

ECDC have just informed us that the surveillance report on seven priority food- and waterborne diseases in the EU/EEA 2010-2012 was published on 7th April: http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications/Publications/food-and-waterborne-diseases-surveillance-report-2015.pdf Listerioris surveillance is the topic of the 2nd chapter.

The NRLs' contact received yesterday the invitation for the upcoming workshop dedicated to staphylococcal enterotoxins. We are looking forward to seeing you in May. The EURL CPS Team Picture: Jawahar Swaminathan and MSD staff at the European Bioinformatics Institute - http://www.ebi.ac.uk/pdbe-srv/view/images/entry

♦ 1st April 2015 ♦ In the frame of its mandate of EURL for rabies serology (Council Decision 2000/258/EC), the Anses-Nancy laboratory for rabies and wildlife, France, organizes each year inter-laboratory aptitude tests for the purposes of Member States or third countries authorization to carry out the serological tests to monitor the effectiveness of the anti-rabies vaccination. A favourable result of the appraisal of the applicant laboratory documented by the ANSES-Nancy laboratory is a pre-requisite for the appraisal. This year, 67 laboratories will participate to the inter-laboratory aptitude test for rabies serology. Sending of the panels will be proceeded around the end of April 2015. Read more about Approved Laboratories in the EU and in Third Countries (ec.europa.eu)  

♦ 30 March 2015 ♦ As announced last month, the EURL laboratory network is invited to participate in the annual overview of tests performed in the NRLs. This year the survey is undertaken online. Deadline for submission is postponed to 15th April... Read more news about the annual overview of tests performed in the NRLs

♦ 20 March 2015 ♦  This book is the second volume of the edition of “Current Laboratory Techniques in Rabies Diagnosis, Research and Prevention”. The overall objective is to provide updated information on techniques, including reference methods, to detect lyssaviruses and also to supply resources for those involved in rabies management and research, both for animal and human rabies. These books are very useful for rabies laboratory workers involved in rabies surveillance and oral vaccination monitoring by using reference tests for rabies diagnosis, serology and potency testing of vaccines as well as for scientists willing to design new tools. Recent methods and novel approaches are also detailed in the books. Most of the methods are clearly described following a template of laboratory protocol or routine Standard Operating Procedure. For each method, a list of the equipment, materials and reagents is generally detailed and a discussion debates the critical parameters and troubleshooting, precautions for health safety, alternative methods (if any), advantages and limitations of the method and the perspectives for the future. Contains and list of contributors can be found here (books.google.fr).  

♦ 01 April 2015 ♦  NDRVMI, Sofia, Bulgaria Rabies laboratory The Rabies laboratory is a structural unit which is part of the National Center for Animal Health in National Diagnostic Research Veterinary Medical Institute, a specialized structure of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA). It has been accredited by the Executive Agency “Bulgarian Accreditation Service" according to EN ISO/IEC 17025 standard since 2009. The staff is composed of 3: a veterinarian (Dr. Darinka Ilieva, DVM, PhD), a molecular biologist (Mariya Staleva) and a laboratory assistant (Teodora Mateva). They are trained to perform diagnostic and rabies serological studies in animals. All national studies related to passive and active surveillance of rabies in Bulgaria are undertaken at the NRL for RCEV. Head of NRL for RCEV Assoc. Prof. Darinka Ilieva, DVM is a scientist graduated with a PhD in Virology. She has 10-year experience in a private practice with small pets and an 18-year experience as a virologist, including a 6-year experience in rabies. Epidemiological evolution and history of rabies in Bulgaria The first case of rabies in Bulgaria was reported in 1896. From 1896 to 1973 rabies appears in the classic form of “street rabies”. Thanks to the efforts made on the one hand, for the limitation of the population of stray dogs, and on the other hand through the domestic dog vaccination campaigns undertaken since 1956,  ”street rabies” have decreased in our country. These measures have shifted the circulation of rabies virus to wild populations, causing sylvatic rabies. Wildlife mediated rabies was first detected in 1974 in the northern part of the country. From 1979 to 1981, no rabies cases were detected, although still for unknown reasons. In Europe, including Bulgaria, the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the main rabies virus reservoir in wildlife. Rabies control history in dates 1982-1987 Increase of rabies case records. Detection of 203 cases in 173 areas spread on 14 districts (9 in Northern Bulgaria and 5 in Southern Bulgaria). 1988-2014 Detection of 696 cases of rabies in wild and domestic animals in Bulgaria, as follow: foxes: 341 (49%), jackals: 22 (3,2%), dogs: 68 (9,8%), cats: 33 (4,7%), other domestic animals: 210 (30,2%), and other species: 22 (3,1%). These data show that among animal populations, the most receptive specie is fox. 2007-2009 With regard to the complicated epidemic situation, the competent Veterinary Authorities presented to the European Commission an Oral Vaccination (OV) programme for fox for approval and funding. 2009 Significant improvements have been recorded further to the first oral vaccination campaign. 2010 The disease started to clearly decline. 2015 OV of foxes against rabies will be conducted again in the Northern and South-Western territories of Bulgaria, where rabies cases have been last registered. OV of foxes is planned to be implemented for at least 5 consecutive years, but, in case of eradication, it would stop 2 years after the last rabies case.   Bat surveillance in Bulgaria During 2014, in collaboration with our colleagues from the Bulgarian Academy of Science we did a research project for a detailed analysis of the Bulgarian bat populations regarding occurrence and carrying of rabies. This research project requests a financial support and will be undertaken in the future. Contact Assoc. Prof. Darinka Ilieva, Ph.D Head of NRL of Rabies and Control the Effectiveness of the Vaccination National Diagnostic Research Veterinary Medical Institute 15A Pencho Slaveikov, Blvd. 1606, Sofia - Bulgaria emd@mail.orbitel.bg (+359) 877 800 341 - (+359-2) 952 53 06

Samples for the 2015 PT trial dedicated to SE detection are ready be shipped. Departure from the lab today at 14:00. Arrival at the NRL places expected : 8 or 9 April 2015.