New Board of Directors' Meeting

On Monday, September the 3^rd, following the nominations of the Italian Ministry of Health and the Abruzzo and Molise Regions, the new Board of Directors gathered in a meeting at the G. Caporale Institute Headquarters.

This historical reunion concluded a long period of compulsory administration and was held twenty years after the last Council meeting held in March 1993.

In addition to the Director General Fernando Arnolfo, doctors Aldo Grasselli, appointed by the Ministry of Health, Santino Prosperi and Nicola D'Alterio, appointed by the Abruzzo Region, Nicola Ciarallo and Giovanni Presutti, appointed by the Molise Region, all attended the meeting. Said doctors are all veterinarians with the only exception of Giovanni Presutti who holds the position of director of Administration at the Molise Regional Health Authority Agency.

During the meeting the new Statute of the Institute was drafted. Such Statute rapresents an essencial tool to govern the agency. Its drafting was not only necessary but urgent, as changes in reference norms and regulations rendered the previous version old and obsolete.

The document proposed by the Director General Fernando Arnolfo, consisting of 25 articles, was adopted unanimously and will be forwarded, before final approval, to the Abruzzo and Molise Regions for aspects of specific competence.

Its content emphasises the role of the Institute as a "tool of scientific and technical excellence, at the services of the national Ministry of Health and the Regions, for matters of international cooperation and higher education in the fields of veterinary public health, hygiene, food safety and a proper balance of the man-animal-environment relationship. "

The Council reiterated the primary objective of the Institute's new governance, i.e., the safeguard of the qualitative requirements and standards set by the Memorandum of Understand between the Ministry of Health and the reference Regions on December the 11^th, 2009. Amongst goals, the Institute stressed the need to enhance collaboration, throughout the territory, with other agencies, namely territorial public health services, universities, and the Italian Experimental Zooprophylactic Institutes' network