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SVA

The personnel at the Division of Wildlife, Department of Pathology and Wildlife Diseases, SVA (www.sva.se), consist of 8 veterinarians, 2 wildlife biologists, a bacteriologist and support/administrative staff. The Department has also a Research and Development Division and conducts research particularly on infectious diseases of wild animals, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza, tularemia, hepatitis E, and other topics. SVA has long expertise on diagnosis of infectious diseases of wildlife applying a broad range of disciplines (bacteriology, parasitology, virology, pathology, molecular biology) and methods. The division of wildlife at SVA conducts diagnostic pathology on more than 5000 wild animals annually. SVA has built an archive of frozen wildlife samples of over 10 000 cases, including the target species of this proposal, collected since the late 1980s, which will be made available to the project to test the developed harmonized methods in selected hosts and for selected pathogens. SVA has worked specifically in sampling methodology for wildlife as part of the EU WildTech project, which are first steps to build on the development of harmonized sampling methods SVA works hand-in-hand with hunters, biologists, institutions and organisations directly involved in estimating population abundance, and it is therefore in a favourable position to contribute to this objective, in particular for estimations on wild boar and red foxes. SVA is actively involved in an extended  network of wildlife specialists and organizations. Interest groups and stakeholders in the wildlife arena in close collaboration and communication with SVA include nationally, the Swedish Board of Agriculture, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and The Swedish Hunting Association; and internationally the OIE, IUCN, the Wildlife Disease Association and others. SVA's laboratory activities are accredited by SWEDAC in accordance with SS-EN ISO/IEC 17025.

Contact: dolores.gavier-widen [a] sva.se

VetAgroSup

VetAgroSup and the associated group, including the Evolutionary Ecology research group of the UMR CNRS 5558 (University of Lyon), has a solid experience with population monitoring of mammalian populations and contributed to quality assessment of several census methods. They took a major role on developing alternative tools to population counts involving the monitoring of indicators of ecological change. Members of the group are also involved in disease surveillance and in ecological and epidemiological modeling.

Contact: marc.artois [a] vetagro-sup.fr

FLI

FLI is the leading German institution in animal health. It has contacts to German authorities and wildlife associations. The established databases at FLI for classical swine fever (European database on classical swine fever in wild boar), avian influenza (German AI-DB, FP6 New FluBird database), rabies (WHO Rabies database for Europe – Rabies Bulletin Europe) and echinococcosis (research database), which already contain wildlife population-related data and ecological parameters, will be extended for data obtained by the other partners. FLI coordinates the network “Rodent-borne pathogens” in Germany, which will be highly beneficial for the APHAEA project.

Contact: Christoph.Staubach [a] fli.bund.de

IZSTO

The Italian partners in APHAEA have an extensive background in wild animal management, wildlife health and in the epidemiology of diseases shared between wildlife, livestock, and humans. They manage a wildlife tissue bank (more than 3000 animals) as well as a serum bank (more than 10 000 animals) and about 2000 animals are necropsied by partners every year. This represents a rich source of samples for use in the APHAEA project and, at the same time, warrants the state-of-the-art diagnostic skills in direct and indirect diagnostic tests for wildlife diseases. 

Contact : ezio.ferroglio [a] unito.it

IREC

Spain coordinates APHAEA through IREC (www.uclm.es/irec) and collaborating researchers from Universidad Complutense and INIA. IREC is the leading Spanish research institute on wildlife diseases. The Wildlife Disease Department works on all aspects of wildlife epidemiology and disease control. This Department includes specialists in epidemiology and ecology, specifically including census methods and GIS applications. IREC has significant expertise in wild boar and red fox, and in viral diseases of swine, tuberculosis and parasitic and vector-borne diseases. IREC collaborates closely with the Ministry of Agriculture, regional governments and agencies in wildlife disease surveillance, including the recently approved Spanish Wildlife Disease Surveillance Plan. IREC also coordinates the RIEC network (Red de Investigación en Enfermedades Compartidas) on diseases shared with wildlife. Collaborating researchers from INIA have wide experience adapting sampling methods and diagnostic techniques for a broad range of pathogens affecting wildlife, especially those zoonotic ones related with synanthropic birds (pigeons and passerines).

Contact: christian.gortazar [a] uclm.es

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