High Security Animal Disease Laboratory

HSADL gets international recognition as reference laboratory for bird flu

The long-awaited recognition for High Security Animal Disease Laboratory by Office International Epizooties (OIE) the world's apex organization for Animal Health came into effect at the OIE's headquarter at its 77th General Session held at Paris on 28th May, 2009. Dr. S. C. Dubey gave this news following his return from Paris. With this event, HSADL becomes the third OIE-recognized reference lab for avian influenza in Asia after Japan and China and 9th in the world.

The efforts for getting this recognition started in 2006 when HSADL successfully and promptly diagnosed the first event of bird flu outbreak in Maharashtra and its results were accepted by OIE. An important breakthrough was achieved during Dr. Dubey's visit to Japan last year when he attended OIE-JTF (Japan Trust Fund) meeting and presented the contributions of HSADL for bird flu diagnosis and control followed by proposal for sharing of HSADL facilities for AI control program with other South Asian countries. Later in 2008, Dr. Dubey was invited by FAO-OIE-WHO joint symposia for human-animal interface meeting on avian influenza at Verona, Italy where he again presented country's success story in control of bird flu in India using its own facilities, expertise and resources. After this visit to Italy, HSADL got the informal approval as OIE referral laboratory for avian influenza subject to final approval by general session of the OIE. These two opportunities attracted the attention of world authorities and finally led to the formal approval of HSADL as reference lab by OIE last week. The OIE General Session during 24-29 May, 2009 at Paris, France was marked by the presence of delegates and participants from 174 countries who finalized the revised report of terrestrial code for animal health for global trade of animals and their products. It is worth to mention that OIE acts as an apex organization to formulate & circulate regulatory guidelines for these purposes.

HSADL is at present collaborating with one of the OIE recognized avian influenza laboratory in USA at Athens in Georgia on development of new generation vaccines and diagnostics for avian influenza. One of the senior scientist, Dr. David L. Suarez, from the US based South East Poultry Research Lab (SEPRL) was at HSADL recently for to finalize the project program with HSADL scientists. With status of OIE reference laboratory, HSADL is likely to have similar upward linkages with other OIE recognized labs in frontier areas of bird flu research and participation with OFFLU (OIE-FAO common platform to handle avian influenza on global basis). Simultaneously, this lab will initiate downward linkages with neighboring countries not having up-to-date facilities for bird flu diagnosis. As a beginning, FAO, VCI (Veterinary Council of India) and DADF (Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries) sponsored training programs on AI diagnosis for candidates from Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh has already been started at HSADL.