Nutrition and food safety

TOPIC

Nutrition and food safety

Food-borne diseases

Food-borne diseases (FBD) are a significant public health concern. They result from consumption of contaminated food and water. Many zoonotic microorganisms cause FBD, and other microorganisms present in the environment can contaminate surfaces and tools used in food processing.

The Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS, the National Institute of Health in Italy) carries on FBD epidemiological surveillance for early detection of potential outbreaks.

The ISS hosts a number of Reference Laboratories that carry out analytical activities, support the implementation and harmonization of local laboratories, and the integration of human and veterinary fields. In addition, the ISS carries out training activities in FBD epidemiological surveillance and laboratory activities.



Back Training at the EURL-VTEC

The EURL-VTEC offers laboratory training for the staff of the NRLs of EU Member States or third countries. All the training sessions are based on a hands-on approach and consist in visits to the EURL-VTEC of trainees interested in improving their knowledge about methodologies and techniques for pathogenic E. coli detection, identification, and typing. A dedicated budget from the European Commission is usually allocated to support visits of scientists from EU-NRLs and each year the EURL launches a call to collect applications from the NRLs.
Different training programs are currently available at the Training at the EURL-VTEC section of the website and also reported below. 
 
- Program for a 5-days training on the detection of VTEC in food matrices according to the ISO TS 13136:2012 and the characterization of the isolated VTEC strains (EU-RL VTEC_Training Program_ISOTS13136_Rev 3)

- Program for a 4-days training on the identification and characterization of the different groups of pathogenic E. coli by Real Time PCR amplification of their virulence genes (EU-RL VTEC_Training Program_Identification of pathogenic E. coli_Rev 2)

- Program for a 5-days training on molecular typing of VTEC by PFGE (EU-RL VTEC_Training Program_PFGE typing_Rev 2)

- Program for a 5-days training on the design and preparation of PTs on the detection of VTEC in food matrices (EU-RL VTEC_Training Program_PT organization _Rev 1)

- Program for a 3-days training on the use of bioinformatics tools for Next Generation Sequencing data mining for typing pathogenic E. coli (EURL-VTEC_Training Program_Bioinformatics_Rev 0) [PDF - 120.32 kbytes]

 

In the same section are also available the documents related to:

- Basic Course on the use of BioNumerics Software for the analysis of Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis-generated profiles of E. coli (Rome, 12-13 June 2014)

- Second Joint Training Course on the Use of BioNumerics Software to analyse PFGE data of Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes (Rome, 3-4 July 2017)
 


Dipartimenti/Centri/Servizi

Departments Food safety, nutrition and veterinary public health

Target

Healthcare professional

Content type

Document

Topics

Nutrition and food safety Food-borne diseases Microbiological food safety Veterinary public health Zoonoses