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Research

The main research objective is directed towards field epidemiology studies of animal or zoonotic diseases and risk analysis in the food chain, including primary production. Scientific research is currently oriented towards the analysis of the key factors for emergence of vector diseases, rare events and spread of infectious and parasitic diseases.

The main research themes have dealt so far with several studies regarding: non-specific serological reactions in the diagnosis of bovine brucellosis, epidemiology of rare events such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, molecular epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis, assessment of disease control and prevention, epidemiology, economic impacts and experimental infection of bluetongue, and clinical epidemiology of emerging infectious vector diseases such as the West Nile disease.

The emergence of bluetongue in Northern Europe has opened a new area of research dealing with the clinical presentation, the pathogenesis (experimental infections), the epidemiology and the risk analysis of this infection in cattle.

In addition to research activities, the unit can offer several services: epidemiological and risk analysis of (re-)emerging diseases, estimation of diagnostic tests and vaccines performance, epidemiological inquiries of animal diseases and contaminations, advices about control and preventive strategies for infectious and parasitic diseases of domestic animals. The research is performed in a fully equipped epidemiology and risk analysis research unit.