♦ 04 April 2016 ♦

Latvian National Reference Laboratory
Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment BIOR (Institute BIOR) - Rīga, Latvia

The Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment BIOR (Institute BIOR) is the National Reference Laboratory for rabies in Latvia. The Institute BIOR consists of three laboratories situated in Riga (Animal Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory, Laboratory of Food and Environmental Investigations and Medical Microbiology Laboratory) and three Regional laboratories.
Two Divisions of Animal Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory (ADDL) deal with rabies diagnostics and Monitoring of ORV: Virology Division and Pathology Division.

Rabies team

Staff present on 01.04.2016: From the left: Daina Čavare (M.Sc.), Ņina Baranovska, Irina Kaļiņičenko (M.Sc.), Ludmila Soboļeva. On the background: Ieva Rodze(M.Sc.), Zita Muižniece (Dr.biol.) and Svetlana Cvetkova (M.Sc.). Staff missing from the photo: Marianna Dobroštana (PhD student), Veronika Buboviča (Dr.biol.), Jūlija Trofimova (M.Sc.), Marija Bazanova (veterinarian) and Inga Pigiņka-Vjačeslavova (PhD student).

The head of ADDL is Ieva Rodze who coordinates all work for rabies diagnostic in the Laboratory and provides for cooperation with Food and Veterinary Service on rabies surveillance.
Rabies specific diagnostics are carried out mainly in Virology Division. Head of Division is Marianna Dobroštana. In these activities six senior experts and two laboratory technicians from Virology Division are involved.
Two senior experts from Pathology Division perform necroscopy and tetracycline detection in teeth.


Rabies technique

Laboratory techniques used for diagnostic tests in frame of passive surveillance is FAT, RTCIT and conventional hn-RT-PCR (P.R. Heaton et al., 1997), virus genotype sequence analysis.
Serological tests used for vaccination control are FAVN and ELISA.
ORV campaign control is performed by bait titration, serological tests by ELISA (sero-conversion detected by Ab-ELISA) and luminescent microscopy (for tetracycline detection in teeth).
The laboratory is accredited according to ISO 17025 and all rabies laboratory techniques used in BIOR have been accredited.


Latvia rabies status

Latvia has been approved free of rabies since 2015, but vaccination is still carried out close to Latvia’s border with Russia and Belorussia.
Now our main task is monitoring of efficiency of ORV, therefore we examine about 1200 samples (from foxes and racoon dogs) per year. In frame of passive surveillance we examine 200 to 300 samples for virus detection and about 200 serological tests for pet international movement per year.

Since 2013 research work has been started for investigation of rabies status in bat population, that is the subject of our colleague Marianna Dobroštana’s PhD studies.


Contact

Responsible expert - Dr.Zita Muižniece: zita.muizniece@bior.lv
Virology Division
Animal Diseases Diagnostic Laboratory
Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment BIOR
Lejupes iela 3, Rīga, LV-1076, LATVIA
Website: www.bior.lv

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