Veterinary medicine
Department of infectious and parasitic diseases
Epidemiology and risk analysis applied to veterinary sciences
Lab history
The laboratory of virology was created in 1971 by professor Fernand Schoenaers at the school of veterinary medicine, located in Cureghem, Brussels. The unit of virology, viral diseases, immunology and epidemiology was then created in 1975 and Paul-Pierre Pastoret, appointed since 1971 as assistant, was in charge of the development of this unit.
Nominated professor, P.-P. Pastoret succeeded Prof. Schoenaers in 1979, chairing this unit until 2002. Among a huge number of subjects, Prof. P.-P. Pastoret has studied bovine herpesviruses (BoHV-1 and BoHV-4), bovine rotaviruses, bovine viral diarrhoea virus, rabies virus and hantaviruses. He has been deeply involved in the development of a recombinant vaccinia-rabies vectored vaccine used for the oral vaccination of wildlife in Europe and in the United States. He is one of the co-founders and the first chairman of the European Society for Veterinary Virology (ESVV).
In 1993, P.-P. Pastoret became professor of immunology, immunopathology and vaccinology, whereas Etienne Thiry, previously assistant in the same unit, was appointed as professor of virology, viral diseases and epidemiology. In 2006, the unit of epidemiology and risk analysis was created in the department of infectious and parasitic diseases. Claude Saegerman, was appointed as professor to create and develop this new unit. Over these years, the main subjects of research dealt with several studies concerning: non specific serological reactions in the diagnosis of bovine brucellosis, the rare events such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the molecular epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis, the assessment of the disease control and prevention, the economic impacts and experimental infection of bluetongue, and the clinical epidemiology of emerging infectious vector diseases.