The Institute in South Africa

On October the 9^th and the 10^th, 2012, Attilio Pini, Giovanni Savini and Massimo Scacchia of the G. Caporale Institute attended the "Regional Seminar on the OIE Laboratory Twinning Programme: Concepts and Perspectives", organised by the OIE (World Organisation for Animal Health) regional office for South Africa and held in Johannesburg (South Africa). They were sent to the event as OIE experts by OIE Director General, Dr Bernard Vallat. The aim of the seminar was to create and strengthen collaboration between African laboratories in order to enhance their diagnostic skills through OIE Twinning Projects.

The seminar involved 31 participants, including representatives of the national veterinary laboratories of Burkina Faso, Botswana, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Morocco, as well as researchers from the Botswana Vaccine Institute, CIRAD and ANSES Fougères (France), Friedrich Loeffler Institute (Germany), Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (South Africa), University of Zurich (Switzerland), AHVLA and Pirbright Institute (Great Britain).

In his speech, Dr Scacchia exposed "The benefits of Twinning projects for tutor laboratories", while the report of Dr Pini on "useful lessons learned from past experiences" shed light on the Institute's past experiences concerning twinning projects. At the end of the first day, Dr Savini, strongly knowledgeable about the matter due to his experience with OIE Bluetongue Reference Laboratories Network (OIE BTNet), explained the benefits of having a functional network of Reference Laboratories.

During the seminar, the representative of the Botswana National Veterinary Laboratory, which as a result of the Twinning with the Institute has become an OIE Reference Laboratory for CBPP, formally thanked the G. Caporale Institute for all the technical, scientific and human support provided. Outcomes of the meeting included doctors Pini, Savini and Scacchia being contacted by the laboratory managers of some African countries aiming to plan new Twinnings relating to diseases for which the Institute is a reference at an international level.