♦ 17 May 2018 ♦ [Relayed from freepatentsonline.com website] Described herein is a method of identifying a monoclonal antibody (or antigen-binding fragment thereof) that specifically binds a plurality of lyssaviruses for use in post-exposure rabies prophylaxis or in the treatment of clinical rabies. The method includes using a naive antibody phage display library to screen for phage clones that bind whole recombinant rabies virus or cells expressing glycoprotein from multiple...

♦ 24 May 2018 ♦ [Relayed from the OIE website] The 86th OIE General Session was the occasion to give OIE Member Countries, an overview of the global animal health situation, as well as to analyse trends in the evolution of priority terrestrial and aquatic animal diseases. In addition, new disease status were officially recognised for 10 countries. One of the key missions of the OIE is to ensure transparency of the global animal health situation, including zoonoses. The situation...

♦ 04 July 2018 ♦ [Relayed from the GARC ERN website] Currently human rabies continues to rage in Algeria. In the last decade, there was an average of 15 to 20 cases of rabies/year with 100,000 to 120,000 cases of bites affecting mostly children under 15 years of age. Following Algeria's participation in MEEREB/MERACON in 2015 and 2018 and the sharing of knowledge and experiences on the ground of the different participating countries and international organizations, they are...

♦ 01 September 2018 ♦ [Text from F. Cliquet during 10th workshop for rabies] Following this presentation on the History and Activities in the Belgian rabies NRL, I would like to take few minutes to say with some emotion some words about one person from this laboratory, one person we appreciate a lot in our laboratory, a person who contributed in the eighties and nineties to the development of oral vaccines and methods for rabies control in fox populations in Europe. Dr Bernard...

♦ 02 July 2018 ♦ National veterinary institute (NVI) is a special organization unit of Veterinary faculty at the University of Ljubljana. It operates as public institution of national interest. National reference laboratory for rabies is part of Unit for virology Within NVI. The Unit for virology is located in specialized facilities for laboratory investigation of viral diseases. NVI performs the activities determined by the Law on the veterinary service, on the basis of the...

♦ 25 May 2018 ♦ Next workshop for rabies is now approaching and will be held in less than one month in Belgium. Although this meeting is exclusively for member of the EURL for rabies network, more than 52 scientists and international institutions registered and will gather in Brussels on 13 and 14 June. The EURL for rabies thank all of them for their trust in its activities. The agenda will cover four sessions over the 2 half-days: International institutions, Round table of...

♦ 24 April 2018 ♦ The Rabies Laboratory of Sciensano (Brussels, former Scientific Institute of Public Health WIV-ISP) is officially recognized as the Belgian National Reference Centre for Human Rabies (NRC Rabies: financed by the National Institute for health and Invalidity Insurance, RIZIV-INAMI) and the National Reference Laboratory for Animal Rabies (NRL Rabies: recognized by the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain, FAVV-AFSCA). The lab is also recognized by the...

♦ 20 April 2018 ♦ [Relayed from the WHO website] Since the launch of the Global framework to eliminate human rabies transmitted by dogs by 2030 in 2015, WHO has worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the World Organisation for Animal Health, the Global Alliance for Rabies Control and other stakeholders and partners to prepare a global strategic plan. This includes a country-centric approach to support, empower and catalyse national entities to...

♦ 20 April 2018 ♦ [Relayed from the WHO website] In accordance with its mandate to provide guidance to Member States on health policy matters, WHO issues a series of regularly updated position papers on vaccines and combinations of vaccines against diseases that have an international public health impact. They summarize essential background information on diseases and vaccines and conclude with the current WHO position on the use of vaccines worldwide. The papers are reviewed by...

♦ 25 April 2018 ♦ [Relayed from the ANSES website] “Basing itself on philosophical, social and legal interpretations of the concept of animal welfare, this Opinion proposes a definition of animal welfare that takes into account developments in scientific knowledge and summarises analyses by experts regarding the methods required for its assessment. The Opinion identifies numerous assessment grids aiming to objectively measure the conditions for animal welfare and encourages...