Bluetongue Diagnosis Twinning and Cooperation Project

In January and February 2011, the G. Caporale Institute, acting in its capacity as OIE Bluetongue Reference Laboratory, hosted four delegates from the Institut de la Recherche Vétérinaire de Tunisie (IRVT) and two delegates from the Institut de Recherche Agronomique du Liban (IRAL), who attended a training course held as part of a twinning and cooperation project under the aegis of the OIE and in liaison with the Italian Ministry of Health. The aim of the overall project, which will run until October 2011, is to provide theoretical and practical training in the diagnosis of bluetongue, so that those Institutes can become international reference centres for the disease. The Institute had already hosted a first Tunisian delegation from 29 November to 18 December 2010 for a training course devoted to serological diagnosis of bluetongue, whereas the training course just completed by the new delegation (Abderrazak Dkhil (IRVT), Salma Mejri (IRVT), Ahmed Ben Ali Hatem Ouled (IRVT), Sofiane Seghaier (IRVT), Mayssaa Dabaja (IRAL) and Jeanne El Hage (IRAL)) related to the virological diagnosis of bluetongue. During the four-week course, the delegates were able to observe and learn the most common and important diagnostic techniques currently used to detect and characterise bluetongue virus strains.