A workshop on AIV sequencing, phylogeny and bioinformatics was held at the OIE Collaborating Centre for biotechnology-based diagnosis of infectious diseases in veterinary medicine (http://www.sva.se/oie-cc) at the National Veterinary Institute (SVA) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Uppsala, Sweden, between May 26th-29th.

The workshop was organized as part of the EU funded project ConFluTech and was co-financed by FLUTRAIN. Fifteen colleagues from 12 countries including Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Macedonia, Namibia, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine, and Rumania participated in this very focused and hands-on workshop.

Between April 19th-29th 2009, a group of Swedish experts, within the FLUTRAIN consortium, conducted a laboratory training at the Central Veterinary Laboratory (CVL) in Teko, Sierra Leone, financed by the Swedish Reference Group for Animal Health in collaboration with FLUTRAIN, FAO and IAEA. The training, with participants from the CVL and from Njala University focused on the diagnosis of avian influenza, Newcastle disease and PPR, as well as basic bacteriological techniques, and included lectures and practical hands-on exercises.



The group of participants together with the head of the CVL in Teko, Dr M. Barrie, in front of the main laboratory building.

Following a request to FLUTRAIN, an expert in Real-Time PCR is being sent by P1 to the Laboratoire National Delevage et de Recherches Veterinaire (LNERV), Dakar, Senegal from the 26th to the 30th of January, 2009.

From the 26th to the 28th of January 2009 FLUTRAIN partners IZSVe and UNIPD will be hosting the second Workshop on "Laboratory Training in Diagnosis of Avian influenza" funded by the EU Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG-SANCO).

Four participants each from Bangladesh, India, Morocco, Eygpt and the Philippines will be attending the Workshop.

In December 2008, IZSVe hosted Mamoona Chaudry, a Pakistani veterinarian and PhD student at the School of Veterinary Studies, Edinburgh, Scotland for a two week training course in classical and molecular diagnostic techniques for AI.

In collaboration with FAO, four experts from FLUTRAIN partner institutes (IZSVe, CVI, VAR and SVA) undertook assessments of AI diagnostic laboratories in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia during the first week of December, 2008. The information gathered will help in the the selection of a second AI diagnostic laboratory for the region and will also allow FLUTRAIN to provide ad hoc training to these laboratories.

In collaboration with the EU Network of Excellence (EPIZONE) a Workshop on "Sequencing of the Avian influenza genomes" was held on the 27th to the 31st of October, 2008 at IZSVe. Two particpants from NVRI, Pulawy, Poland and one from the National Diagnostic and Research Veterinary Medical Institute, Varna, BULGARIA attended.

In collaboration with the EU FLUAID project a Workshop on "Sequencing of Avian influenza genomes" was held from the 29th of September to the 3rd of October, 2008 at IZSVe. Three particpants from Bangaldesh, India and Pakistan attended.

From the 1st to the 3rd of September 2008 FLUTRAIN partners IZSVe and UNIPD will be hosting a Workshop on "Laboratory Training in Diagnosis of Avian influenza" funded by the EU Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG-SANCO).

10 participants from Bulgaria will be attending the Workshop.

A workshop in Avian influenza diagnostics was held at the OIE/FAO and National Reference Laboratory for Newcaslte disease and Avin influenza, Legnaro (PD), Italy in collaboration with the Veterinary Medicine Faculty, University of Padova, Italy from the 28th January to the 8th of February, 2008.

Participants attending the course were selected from Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, FYR of Macedonia, Montenegro, Turkey and the Ukraine.