Reference activities

The unit have numerous mandates as a national and international reference laboratory.

National reference laboratories

French Ministry of Food and Agriculture: Foot-and-mouth disease virus (BIOPIC team), swine vesicular disease (BIOPIC team), Bluetongue virus (BIOR team), Vesicular Stomatitis (BIOPIC team), African Horse Sickness virus (BIOR team), Epizootic hemorrhagic Disease virus (BIOR team), West Nile (ZEN team), Japanse encephalitis (ZEN team), Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (ZEN team), Western Equine Encephalitis virus (ZEN team), Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis virus (ZEN team)

International reference laboratory

FAO : Foot-and-mouth disease (BIOPIC team)

OMSA : Foot-and-mouth disease (BIOPIC team),  EHDV (BIOR team)

EU RL: Foot-and-mouth disease (BIOPIC team, activity shared with Sciensano, Belgium)

EU RL: Equine diseases (except AHS)

Training

All the teams mandated internationally to diagnose samples are able to help countries which lack competences or equipment to characterize strains. Once a year, workshops are held to discuss everyone's results, and provide advices and ways of improvments. Unit's teams aspire to help other countries to reach ISO accreditation.

Among them, BIOPIC is mandated to diagnose samples from 35 countries, each of them having to be able to confirm the presence of the FMD virus.  They are part of the "Réseau Méditerranéen de Santé Animale" (Mediterranean Network of Animal Health) composed of Maghreb countries, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Libya and South East European neighbors (Iran, Irak, Balkans).

They also give conferences in French-speaking African countries, publish surveillance reports and regularly welcome international trainees.