♦ 16 June 2016 ♦

Despite the unfortunate Alsatian weather of the day, the annual Workshop for Rabies was a frank success. Forty-five rabies European scientists attended the meeting in the European Capital City of Strasbourg, leading to constructive exchanges on rabies. Additionally to the representative of the European Commission, Pedro Rosado Martin (G5 Unit of EC DG Santé), the EURL team was pleased to welcome for the first time speakers from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and from the French Directorate General for Food (DGAl).

The analysis of the results of inter-laboratory tests for rabies diagnosis organized in 2015 by the EURL for rabies was, as usual, presented with an open discussion on the subject. The EURL for rabies also presented on one hand a performance study of disinfectants used in the context of molecular biology techniques, and on the other hand the progress of the study on the evaluation methods of Real Time RT-PCR.

The Balkan region was in the spotlight this year, and several laboratories attended the meeting (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Kosovo, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia) as well as other eastward countries such as Moldova, Ukraine and Turkey. Each of them presented both the rabies situation and the rabies programmes in progress in their country.

Presentations are available on the EURL for rabies website for private members only.

Next workshop for rabies will be organized in June 2017 in Spain, together with the meeting of the EURL for rabies serology.