The Study Centre for Foreign Diseases (CESME) was recognized by the Ministerial Decree of 2 May 1991 as a National Reference Centre for the study and verification of Foreign Animal Diseases . Its specific tasks are as follows:

• the coordination of the application of the standard diagnostic techniques in Italian laboratories, drafting accounts of these techniques and distributing them;
• production, storage and distribution of the necessary antigens for diagnostic tests;
• typing the pathogenic agents isolated and storing them in a collection;
• the search for new diagnostic methods;
• training in the diagnostic and epidemiological field;
• collaboration with similar international diagnostic Centres;
• laboratory diagnosis using virological, serological, bacteriological and parasitological tests, including the use of molecular biology methods;
• entomology, including identifying and monitoring arthropods which are vectors of aetiological agents;
• drawing up surveillance plans and operating manuals;
• taking part in national and international projects in the field of foreign animal diseases;
• managing epidemic emergencies following the outbreak of a focus/suspected focus of an exotic disease and carrying out the necessary epidemiological investigations and verifications.

Head: Dr. Rossella Lelli