Health Surveillance Program

      To win the battle against diseases in the 21st Century, requires that research and development projects incorporate cross-sectorial and interdisciplinary approaches to survey, prevent and control disease, and preservation of the environment, in line with the objectives of the program “One World, One Health”, which advocates a more holistic approach to disease, integrating the activity of physicians, veterinarians, food experts and environmentalists.

Our Research Consortium is made up by 130 members from twelve research groups (two of them are associated groups) which belong to five Institutions (two of them are associated); most of our scientists are well known at international level, having participated in the foundation of the European Association MED-VET-NET (Association on Zoonoses Research), of which VISAVET (Animal Health Surveillance Centre) is a founding partner.

Objetives

      The main objective of this project is the development of new tools, which are able to increase food safety through the integration of research, field work and methods for diagnosing diseases that could be a threat to the population.

The aim is to create this group to promote monitoring and detection of problems related to Safety and Food Quality.

1. Development of new techniques to detect pathogenic microorganisms and toxic substances in livestock.
2. Development of new techniques for determiniting the composition of food as a guarantee of quality and health protection.
3. Surveillance study and epidemiological analysis of diseases under control or eradication programmes in domestic, synantropic and wild animals and its possible interaction within the food chain.
4. Surveillance study and epidemiological analysis of neglected diseases in domestic, synantropic and wild animals and its possible interaction within the food chain.
5. Study of mycobacterial diseases.
6. Impact study of the antimicrobial use in livestock, food, enviroment and public health.
7. Microorganism collection, databases, samples and reactives.
8. Development of control disease programs in the food chain.
9. Innovative agricultural production technologies: usage and recycling of subproducts of animal origin not intended for human consumtion and recovery of salted water for irrigation.
10. Participation in the coordination and detection of biological alert (Laboratory Network of Biological Alert, RE-LAB).

Installations

      Different schools have laboratories, fully equipped, furnished and equipped with appropriate equipment for the development of microbiological activities (biosafety level 2), biochemical, toxicological, and immunological genomic and proteomic (biosafety level 1).

There are two laboratories of biosafety level 3, designed, built and equipped to work with high-risk microorganisms. These facilities have, in turn, independent of animal facilities that allow in vivo experiments with these pathogens.

Also has a partially equipped class A room. This infrastructure enables the pre-industrial manufacturing pharmaceutical grade products with a high level of security.