Activity

Last update: 23^rd July 2024

Activity

1. Specialized diagnostic activity with different diagnostic methods (see below);
2. Diagnostic approach in case of outbreaks, definition of control procedures, guidelines and managing of the disease in infected farms;
3. Legislative support for the Ministry of Health and Veterinary Regional Officers.

Whit the aim of providing reliable analytical results, IZSLER works under a Management Quality Control System, which is based on the international UNI CEI EN ISO/IEC 17025 for accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories.
The adoption of such standards guarantees the technical competence, the reliability and the impartiality of the laboratory in performing the analyses. This, indeed, becomes an element for the recognition of the validity of the results at international level.
Today, IZSLER is enrolled on the register of Accredia (the national organization recognized for the accreditation of testing and calibration laboratories) as n. 0148 and includes 17 sites and numerous accredited methods.

The methods for direct diagnosis of paratuberculosis, cultural and PCR assays, have been developed “in house” and then validated and standardized. The methods for indirect diagnosis of paratuberculosis (i.e. milk and blood ELISA for detection of antibodies), are currently provided by commercial suppliers upon national tender.

Almost all the methods have been validated according to internal procedures which were largely inspired by the “Chapter 1.1.6. Principles and methods of validation of diagnostic assays for infectious diseases (version adopted in May, 2023). World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH, former OIE) (2024). – Terrestrial Animal Health Code, twelfth edition 2023. WOAH, Paris, France” and by “ISO 16140: part 2 2016.”

The list of the methods is below reported (Table 1).

Table 1: List of methods used in order to diagnose Paratuberculosis