The 15th edition of the Workshop for Rabies took place in Vienna, Austria, on 5 and 6 June 2024. This year, the event was organized in hybrid format with 48 physical and 28 online attendances. It was with pleasure that everyone gathered to meet and discuss the latest news about rabies in Europe and future projects. We thank AGES for co-organizing and hosting this event and all the participants, who brought this Workshop to life through their various presentations. The presentations given during the workshop have been uploaded into the EURL website (accessible only to network members). Finally, the EURL team would like to sincerely thank all the participants and all the people who contributed in one way or another to the organization of this wonderful event.                                                                                                            

The first in-person meeting of the four EU Reference Centres for Animal Welfare (EURCAW Pigs, Poultry and other small farmed animals, Ruminants & Equines, and Aqua) was held on 6 & 7 June in Thessaloniki, Greece. With approx. 40 participants the meeting started with a series of interesting ice-breakers, followed by interactive sessions to exchange ideas about communications and training, quality assurance and scientific outputs. On the second day, members of each Centre were asked to present three minute pitches on ‘What are you proud of – a great way to share experiences! A World Cafe format was then used to discuss seven themes for the new three year work programme (2025-2027). The four EURCAWs have agreed to collaborate on new cross-Centre activities, focusing on a number of exciting initiatives – more to come! Photo: 4 EURCAWs meeting Thessaloniki (©EURCAWs)

The Centre is proud of presenting you its latest infographic issued from a Q2E answer, realized in collaboration with La Chaire bien-être animal: for manual handling and carrying turkeys. A graphic tool for operators in the field for improved turkey welfare !  The document is available here.   

Please save the dates! Two workshops are organized this year on Equine arteritis virus and Glanders/Melioïdosis. The workshops will be held at the International Center of Deauville – Congress Center, 1 av. Lucien Barrière – 14800 DEAUVILLE  (Normandy, France) as follows: -          Monday September 30 , 2024: Equine Arteritis -          Friday October 4, 2024: Glanders – Melioïdosis This year the 2 workshops are organized in conjunction with the International Equine Infectious Diseases Conference (IEIDC 2024) The hybrid mode in-person / virtual attendance will be offered.  Please register via the following link before June 30 if you want to attend the meeting: https://survey.anses.fr/v4/s/rn8ufm We look forward to seeing all. The EURL Team  

  Welcome to The Kick off meeting of the Up4Food project   == 26th of April 2024 ==   Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Kalvskinnet, Sverres gate 12, Trondheim, Norway                           

Our recent article published in Chemosphere makes some noise... Here the link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2024.141486 And another link to a podcast made by France Inter on our work.      

Registration before the 26th July 2024 to the PT nitrofuran residues in casings on the website Progetto Trieste (mandatory for all NRL in charge of nitrofuran control).

In order to ensure the reliability of the analyses carried out by our network of laboratories, our reference laboratory for Brucellosis is currently undertaking an inter-laboratory proficiency testing to assess the effectiveness of bovine milk serological methods. All details and provisional agenda can be found on our ANSES platform (LEILA) --> https://leila.anses.fr/ Deadline for registration = 1rst March, 2024 If you need more information, please contact us at eurl.brucellosis@anses.fr !   #brucellosis #ILPT #cattle #serology #milk 

Congratulations to Thierno Diallo, who became a Doctor of Analytical Chemistry on February 8. Thierno brilliantly defended his thesis, which focused both on consumer exposure to mixtures of contaminants present in bivalves (mussels and oysters) and on the potential consequences of these molecules on the health of these marine organisms. For a number of years, unexplained deaths of bivalves have been observed along the French Atlantic coast, particularly around La Rochelle. The hypothesis underlying this thesis work was that the punctual and/or continuous exposure of bivalves to a mixture of contaminants could weaken these organisms, thereby facilitating the deadly work of viruses and bacteria. To address this issue, longitudinal monitoring of various sites impacted or not by these mortalities was carried out for a year, and targeted and non-targeted approaches were implemented on the samples taken. These analyses enabled us to characterize in situ the cocktails of contaminants to which these marine organisms were actually exposed, and to shed light on a number of hypotheses concerning the dynamics and origins of these contaminants in the natural environment. In addition, this thesis has helped to highlight the potential of high-resolution mass spectrometry to better understand the impact of anthropization on marine organisms and on our dietary exposure. This thesis was an integral part of the ANR JCJC AlimOmic project. At the end of this thesis, which was carried out between the University of La Rochelle and Anses (Laboratoire de Sécurité des Aliments de Maisons-Alfort), no less than 8 articles were published in A/A+ ranking journals, and numerous national and international congresses were attended. These achievements are quite exceptional, and were unanimously praised by the members of Thierno's thesis jury. The supervisory team would like to thank Bruno Le Bizec (Oniris Laberca), Farida Akcha (Ifremer), Elena Gomez (Univ. Montpellier) and Stéphane Bayen (Univ. McGill) for their careful evaluation of this work.

On December 6, Yoann Devriendt-Renault defended his doctoral thesis at the Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d'Alfort (ENVA) - specializing in Chemistry - in Maisons-Alfort. The thesis, entitled "Du sol à l'assiette - impact des traitements thermiques sur le devenir de la chlordécone (CLD) dans les aliments et les sols antillais", is an integral part of the ANR JCJC AlimOmic project (www.alimomic.fr). The thesis was supervised by Julien Parinet (LSAl-PBM) and Thierry Guérin (DSP). The aim of this thesis was to answer the question of how to reduce an individual's exposure to CLD when ingesting an impregnated animal foodstuff. Through his work, Yoann was first able to calculate the processing factors (PF) of various matrices (fish, lobster, chicken, pork, etc.) subjected to different cooking methods (oven, frying pan and microwave). These PF may be useful for risk assessment. Microwaves were also found to be the most effective way of reducing CLD levels. In a second stage, elimination routes were investigated and revealed the possibility of volatilization of CLD, which is also transferred to cooking juices. inally, it would appear that CLD is partly converted to Chlordecol by heat treatment. This original work opens up a number of new avenues of inquiry, and questions which the LSAL will be pursuing in the coming months and years, in order to support risk assessment. The thesis jury, comprising Dr. Magalie Jannoyer (CIRAD) and Pr. Jean Luc Boudenne (Univ ; Aix-Marseille) as rapporteurs, Pr. Patrick Hohener (Univ. Aix-Marseille) and Dr. Agnès Fournier (Univ. Lorraine) as examiners, recognized the high quality of the oral presentation, the manuscript and the scientific valorization associated with this thesis, with 2 publications in 1st quartile (Q1) journals! Congratulations to Yoann on his ENVA doctorate!