The Institute in the Republic of Kazakhstan

From 1 to 4 December 2015, Massimo Scacchia, Fabrizio De Massis, Manuela Tittarelli, e Katiuscia Zilli of the IZSAM have been to Kazakhstan for the final audit of the “OIE Twinning for Animal Brucellosis including diagnostic epidemiology with the objective to become an OIE reference laboratory for Brucellosis”.

It is a twinning project by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on Brucellosis, which involves the IZSAM as an OIE Reference Laboratory for Brucellosis and the National Veterinary Reference Center (NVRC) Republic of Kazakhstan. The Twinning was aimed at improving knowledge and skills of Kazakh staff of the NVRC with the aim to become an OIE Reference Laboratory for brucellosis and to provide scientific and technical support to the other Central Asian Countries.

After the audit, the final workshop took place, which participants were representatives of the NRVC, the OIE delegate for the Central Asian region, Dr. Mereke Taitubayev, representatives of the Kazakh Scientific Research Veterinary Institute (KazSRVI), representatives of the Republican Veterinary Laboratory (RVL), and representatives of the veterinary authorities of Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, for a total of 45 participants.

The target of the workshop was to present the results achieved by the NRVC in the framework of the project, to show his potential as accredited laboratory and National Reference Laboratory for Brucellosis, as well as to identify future activities to be carried out on the abovementioned topics in collaboration with the other Central Asian Countries.