This morning, I had an appointment with two ladies from the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale.  This is a animal disease diagnostic laboratory.  I met with Carla Prattarola, who collects the proper specimens from the animals, and Maria Lucia Mandola, who does the laboratory testing.  Right now, they only do testing on birds (wild and domestic), but they hope to include swine in the future.  They test birds for avian influenza, but also for other diseases such as exotic newcastle disease.  There are 10 laboratories in Italy that do serological testing on bird samples.  In this lab, they conduct about 800 tests per week - 25,000 tests per year for H5 and H7.  They receive all kinds of birds for testing - even those species not affected by bird flu.  As a result, they do have to "filter" through the birds they receive and don't do testing on all of them. 

Maria Lucia Mandola




In Italy, most of the large poultry farms are in the northeast region.   These are controlled houses, much like what we have in the states.  Carla and Maria are most concerned about the small farms that have a variety of different species in a small area.  When a large mortality of birds occurs, there is a protocol that is followed.  Maria gave me a copy of the protocol to review.  Essentially, their Chief of Veterinarian Services and public health officials visit the site and determine how to proceed.  In 1999, there was an outbreak of high path bird flu, and 15 million birds were destroyed.  T

I talked with them about pandemic flu.  They said there is not much discussion of this in Italy - even though there have been birds found with H5N1.  Carla said, "in Italy, we are happy...we don't worry too much".  To their knowledge, there has not been a public campaign about preparing for a pandemic.  I talked to them about our efforts to educate people to stockpile food and water.  They did say that the government in Italy is stockpiling Tamiflu.

As a side note, they thought it was funny that I have a degree in Biology, but I don't work in a laboratory.  It seems that a lot of people here learn a certain trade and stick to it.