From the 12th to th 14th of November, the EURL Brucellosis team went to the National Veterinary Laboratory in Malta to provide a practical training session. This lab is nominated NRL for Brucellosis for Malta and is ISO 17025 accredited. The NRL aims to include the main serological methods for Brucellosis diagnosis in their accreditation scope by the end of 2019.   Acacia Ferreira Vicente (Project manager- EURL Brucellosis team) and Maëline Ribeiro (Lab analyst- EURL Brucellosis team) presented diffèrent aspects of Quality Management applied to serological methods for brucellosis diagnosis. We would like to congratulate Susan Chircop (Head of Malta's Brucellosis team) and the team for their effort and dedication in all the work.

The International Brucellosis Society organized its annual 2-day conference  in Chicago on November 2 and 3, 2019, bringing together 120 participants from 27 countries and including 18 students. In total, the conference counted 33 oral communications and 21 posters. The European and French teams were well represented with 12 oral presentations and 2 posters. The program scanned the different aspects of the research, including cellular interactions between Brucella and host cells (with a guest lecture by Suzana Salcedo, CNRS UMR 5086, University of Lyon), experimental results on new vaccine approaches and several communications related to particular human cases and Brucella excretion in milk and cheese.   Seven European countries contributed actively to the conference programme : ANSES (EURL for Brucellosis, France), APHA (UK), BfR (Germany), CITA (Spain), CNRS (France), INSERM (France), ISZAM (Italy) and NARILIS (Belgium). The EURL team presented 2 oral communications and 1 poster, by Guillaume Girault, Claire Ponsart and Luca Freddi respectively. Noteworthy was an oral presentation on the STAR-IDAZ project, with Brucellosis as a priority topics. More information will be given in our next newsletter.   Next conference will be organised by ISZAM in Italy, 2020, September 29th to October, 2nd. A great opportunity for EU teams to meet and present their research and results, save the date!

The next Open Session of the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease will be a special Edition conducted in virtual format in December 2020. Register your interest now to keep in touch and propose your abstracts for pre-recorded presentations or e-posters.    

Less than one year to the 4th International TEAM (Tephritidae workers of Europe, Africa and Middle East) meeting, to be held from 4th to 8th October 2020, in La Grande-Motte, France. Four years after the last meeting in Stellenbosch (South Africa, 2016), this TEAM symposium renews the strong bonds between Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with the aims of bringing together academia, researchers, extension and industry specialists, who will present their latest scientific results and deliberate on a number of pertinent issues on fruit fly biology, ecology and control.  There's no need to stress the importance of fruit flies for the fruit production economy and the high risk associated to the potential introduction and establishment of those pests in Europe. Fruit flies from tropical countries are frequently intercepted by National Plant Health Service during the phyto-sanitary control at EU points of entry for goods. For example, Bactrocera dorsalis (the oriental fruit fly) was detected for the first time in 2018 in Campania, Southern Italy, during an official survey. For the first time, Drosophila suzukii will be included in this meeting. This invasive pest can be considered as a fruit fly in its own right, with many similarities to Tephritidae due to its difficult management.   More information about program, registration and organization can be found on the official 4th TEAM meeting webpage.   

On 11th October 2019, the European Commission has published the list of regulated quarantine pests which are considered top priorities for EU Member States due to the economic, environmental and social impact on EU’s territory. The list is based on the impact assessments carried out by EFSA and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) on a number of pests identified by the Commission. Some of the criteria considered are the impact on crop yields, the damage to trade and the cost of control measures, as well as social consequences and environmental impact. For each of the listed pests, EU Member States will be required to carry out annual surveys, draw up and keep up to date a contingency plan, perform simulation exercises, launch information campaigns to the public and action plans for the eradication of these pests, when already present on their territory. In this contest, the diagnostic competence of the National Reference Laboratories network is of paramount importance. It is significant to point out that 16 out of the 20 priority pests are insects! Among them, we find species that have already been reported in some Member States, such as the longhorned beetles Anoplophora glabripennis, A. chinensis and Aromia bungii, the oriental fruit fly Bactrocera dorsalis and the japanese beetle Popillia japonica, but also Agrilus planipennis, Spodoptera frugiperda and Bactrocera zonata, that are still outside Europe's borders. All the cited pests are already present in the working plan of the EURL and the Proficiency Tests on Spodoptera frugiperda (for which registrations are open) are an example of the support that the EURL aims to provide to National Reference Laboratories.     Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1702  

The EURL for Bee Health held its 9th. annual workshop on 16th. October 2019 at ANSES Sophia Antipolis. This year the EURL presented the feedback on the three interlaboratory proficiency tests (ILPT) organised in 2018-2019, on the small hive beetle (SHB), Paenibacillus larvae and Tropilaelaps as well as the ILPTs scheduled in 2020. Since the last annual workshop, methods were also developed and/or validated for the quantification of pesticides multiresidues in nectar, for the identification of SHB eggs, for the determination of diagnosis thresholds of viral diseases and for the identification of bacteria causing foulbroods. The analysis of the adoption process of the method for the quantification of six viruses was also described and the results of the enquiry on queen cages importation were shown. In addition, the EURL presented a guidance document for the management of the infestation by SHB in the soil. This document was produced by a working group including the EURL and four European NRLs and released on the EURL website network in April 2019. The participants had also the pleasure to listen to presentations from four NRL representatives. Dr. Ivana Tlak Gajger, head of the Croatian NRL and Dr. Sirpa Heinikainen, representative of the Finnish NRL, gave a talk on their activities and the honey bee health status in their respective countries. Dr. Oureilidis Konstantinos, representative of the Greek NRL, presented the programme of surveillance for the infestation by SHB set up in Greece. Finally, Dr. Franco Mutinelli, Head of the Italian NRL, presented a state of play of the occurrence and surveillance of SHB in Southern Italy. We thank all the speakers for their interesting presentations and all the contributors for the fruitful discussions. Documents of this workshop are available here for the NRL network.

[relayed from @OIE Animal Health] #OIEInternationalStandrads are at disposal of #OIE Member Countries to build resilient animal health systems and support them in the challenges faced in terms of on #animalhealth and #animalwelfare.   The OIE develops and revises OIE International Standards which contribute to: - improving animal health and welfare, as well as human health - improving the economic and social well-being of populations - ensuring fair and balanced trade These standards are continually updated to keep pace with scientific developments.

The EURL team organised the second 2019 training session on the 3rd and 4th of October at ANSES. This 2-day training session focused on control of ELISAs and Rose Bengale (RB) antigens and regrouped eight participants from Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands.    During the practical training, a successful control was performed for one serum ELISA kit and two Rose Bengale antigens. It was a good opportunity to exchange on critical points of reagents controls and share experience on protocols and reagents.   Documents are available on the website in the section Documentation / Training documents.

About 100 participants gathered at Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan in the framework of the Biosurveillance Network of the Silk Road. The following countries were represented: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Urkaine, Modavlie, Uzbekistan, Byelorussia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania. It should be noted that this network has recently expanded to Bulgaria and Romania. The meeting is dedicated to the purpose of strengthening approaches, which are the basis for effective preparedness to prevent, respond and recover from communicable disease threats, within One health Approach.   The first day was focusing on the Economic burden of zoonotic diseases as wekk as Networking & regional collaboration. Economical references from recent "One Health" reports (such as World Bank, 2018) were presented together with results from the Network for the Evaluation of One Health.    The second day provided an update on the Epidemiology of different zoonoses in the BNSR countries, including data on brucellosis. Claire Ponsart animated the "Animal Health" session and was invited to give a presentation on "Brucella genus: a high genetic homology together with a wide host range".  The third day was dedicated to existing surveillance systems and the prevention of biological incidents, with the participation of INTERPOL and a representative of USEUCOM (US European Command).   A report of this mission will be published in the next EURL Newsletter.

[relayed from www.crawd.org] The 2019 International Brucellosis Society (Annual Brucellosis Research Conference) will be held Saturday, November 2 – Sunday, November 3, from 8am to 5pm, as a CRWAD satellite organization. Scheduled guest keynote speakers include Drs. Sergio Costa Oliveira and Elizabeth A. Rucks. For further information or an invitation, please contact Sue D. Hagius (shagius@agcenter.lsu.edu). Attendance requires a separate registration; abstract submission details are available from Sue.   Dates:   November 2-3, 2019   Venue:  Chicago Marriott, Downtown Magnificent Mile, Chicago, IL   Abstract Submissions Deadlines: September 20, 2019   Conference Email:  shagius@agcenter.lsu.edu   CRWAD Website:  www.crwad.org   Conference Hotel Block:  https://crwad.org/crwad2019/hotel-reservations/     Looking forward to seeing you in Chicago!