FAO visit

On 31^st August 2009, a delegation from the FAO visited the Istituto G. Caporale in Teramo to find out more about the Labs Information and Management System (SILAB), developed by the Institute for the management of its laboratory activities.

The visit aimed to establish whether the application that the Institute is developing for Namibia is transferable to countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), founded in 1980 and comprising the following member countries: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The Teramo Institute has long been aware of the importance of an IT system supporting diagnostic activities, in order to improve the efficiency and management of technical and scientific services, enable logging all phases of sample processing and standardise the collection of official and control data.

The FAO delegation also visited the Institute's "Goods In" Department, for a practical demonstration of the system's features. The members of the FAO delegation were as follows:

• Gwenaëlle Dauphin, OFFLU Liaison Officer and Laboratory Expert Animal Health Service
• Shereen Galal, FAO ECTAD, Egypt
• Susanne Münstermann, FAO Regional Office SADC

The participants from Istituto G. Caporale were:

• Rossella Lelli, Head, COVEPI (Reference Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology, Planning and Information)
• Paolo Calistri, Veterinarian
• Patrizia Colangeli, Development supervisor, Data Processing Centre
• Cesare Di Francesco, Laboratory supervisor, Data Processing Centre
• Mauro Di Ventura, Goods In supervisor
• Monica Ferrilli, Programmer
• Ilaria Pascucci, Veterinarian
• Lucilla Ricci, AQLC supervisor
• Antonio Petrini, Veterinarian
• Massimo Scacchia, LADIMAT (Laboratory for Diagnosis of Transmissible Animal Diseases) supervisor
• Enzo Ruggieri, Veterinarian