Partner 4: ANSES – Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environment et du travail
Formerly known as:
Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments (AFSSA)
Laboratory of Research on Rabies and Wildlife diseases (LERRPAS)
Role, qualification and experience
The AFSSA is a governmental institution created in 1999 from the former CNEVA. The Agency is jointly answerable to the Ministries of Health, Agriculture and Consumer Affairs and is tasked to contribute to ensuring food safety, from the production of raw materials through to distribution to the final consumer. The main objective of the laboratory was historically to combat rabies. In the 1980′s, the activities of the laboratory were enlarged to research on zoonotic diseases with high impact on human health (mainly Echinococcosis) and the development of a national database recording epidemiological results on wildlife diseases. All activities are conducted in LERRPAS with a multidisciplinary approach, (epidemiology, virology, immunology and vaccinology, molecular biology, pathogenesis and animal-animal / animal-human transmission of viruses, field work).
The LERRPAS is the national reference institute mandated by the Ministry of Agriculture since January 1999 for monitoring the epidemiosurveillance of rabies on domestic and wild animals. The LERRPAS is also the national reference laboratory for Echinococcus since 2006. The laboratory is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Management in Zoonoses Control since September 1983. It is an OIE reference laboratory for rabies since June 1999 and the Community Reference Institute for rabies serology since March 2000. The laboratory provides scientific and technical expert support at the European level (EU, EDQM) and to international organizations (OIE, OMS) through assigned activities.
The team has extensive teaching and research capacity for rabies and echinococcosis. The laboratory has extensive experience in collaborations with countries in Europe, Americas, Asia and Africa. Our research covers a range from diagnosis, vaccine control, serology assays, experimental infection and epidemiological investigation and management of controls programs in domestic animal and wildlife in developing countries. In the last 10 years the laboratory has published more than 350 scientific papers.
Scientific leader
Dr Franck Boué, Senior Research, PhD in biology of reproduction, has 15 years of experience in research in biochemistry and molecular biology. He is head of the unit on research on rabies and emerging diseases and is implicated in parasitic studies on Echinococcus with > 30 international papers.
Key personnel
Dr Florence Cliquet, Research Director, PhD in immunology has 15 years of experience in rabies and is Head of the laboratory. She is expert in rabies for OIE and WHO. She is involved in research rabies on domestic and wildlife animals with > 150 international papers.
Dr Jacques Barrat, DVM, has 26 years of experience in rabies. He is Head, of Epidemiosurveillance of Diseases in Wildlife and Domestic carnivores Unit, of wildlife diseases monitoring and of animal experimentation with > 150 international papers. Expert OIE for Rabies.
Website
ANSES – Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’environment et du travail, France