Chief Executive's Overview
New high containment laboratory for avian influenza
opened by Chief Executive, Steve Edwards
"I am pleased to be able to report a highly successful year for the Veterinary Laboratories Agency.
Steve Edwards
Chief Executive
As well as meeting all of our demanding Ministerial Targets for the year, we have responded rapidly and effectively to incidents of avian influenza and Newcastle disease in the UK, while maintaining our role for both diseases as an International Reference Laboratory.
We have hosted 3 major international conferences - on Avian Influenza, BSE and Mycoplasmas. Our collaborative activities with other scientific institutions at home and abroad have continued to grow and to yield significant benefits to the work of the Agency.
We have also reinvigorated our commercial activities with the appointment of a programme manager and a talented support team, an area that will continue to grow during the year ahead.
Nevertheless our principal goals remain focused on providing the highest quality veterinary research, disease surveillance, consultancy and laboratory-based testing services for the Government".
Whooper swan (Cygnus cygnus)
The year started on a busy note when, on the 6th April 2006, VLA confirmed that a sample from a dead Whooper swan in Cellardyke, Scotland, contained highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus. Further investigation revealed that the virus was closely related to those from wild birds elsewhere in Europe, in particular those viruses isolated at Rügen Island, Germany. The additional testing associated with increased surveillance, resulted in new procedures being implemented at VLA for surge capacity, including the use of robotic extraction systems for processing large numbers of samples from wild birds.
The incident in Cellardyke coincided with VLA hosting the 6th International Symposium on Avian Influenza at St John's College, Cambridge. Around 200 expert scientists came from across the world to discuss national and international issues on avian influenza. The confirmation of H5N1 on our shores during the conference definitely provided a buzz amongst the home contingency and general interest from our foreign colleagues.
Avian Influenza (H5N1) virus
Avian influenza, H5N1, was also confirmed at the beginning of February 2007, at a turkey farm in Suffolk. Rapid molecular analysis of the viruses revealed a very high similarity between the viruses found in Suffolk and recent Hungarian outbreaks. The incident coincided with the full commissioning of our new avian influenza high containment laboratory at Weybridge, which greatly increased our resilience for dealing with major outbreaks of influenza or Newcastle disease in birds. It also gives enhanced and high quality facilities for our expanding research programme in this area. Avian influenza typifies the importance we attach to international collaborations. They bring scientific benefits from dialogue with scientists working on related topics, as well as giving us access to diseases exotic to the UK.
Collaborative agreement on Prion Diseases signed with the Republic of Korea
A good example of this was an agreement between VLA and the Zooprophylactic Experimental Institute, in Sicily, to work together on contagious agalactia and brucellosis. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) also designated VLA as an International Reference Laboratory for contagious agalactia. Further collaborative work included funding from the Wellcome Trust Livestock Initiative where Institutes in Ethiopia and Kenya, together with collaborators at Imperial College, London, Trinity College, Dublin and the Swiss Tropical Institute were working together on tuberculosis. Another collaborative agreement was also signed with the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Services for Prion Diseases in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). This will facilitate exchange of staff between the two organisations as well as sharing information and technology.
VLA continues to play a key role as a global centre of expertise for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, which was exemplified when we hosted an International Conference on Prion Diseases of Domestic Livestock in May 2006. The conference illustrated how much progress had been made on understanding and controlling the disease since the first discovery of BSE in 1986, to which VLA has been a major contributor. The conference also reflected on the challenges for the future, one of which is to clarify the relevance and importance of 'atypical' forms of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. This was identified in the UK for the first time in March 2007 from a retrospective examination, by VLA, of a case from 2005.
National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Services for Prion Diseases in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). This will facilitate exchange of staff between the two organisations as well National collaborations have not been neglected. The InterLab Forum, an agreement between six Public Sector Research Establishments (PSREs) from across Government, acting for the best interest of the public to promote knowledge sharing, brought together the expertise from VLA's radiochemists with those in the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS), to tackle the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning investigation. Further success for our Radiochemistry Unit continued when they won a competitive tender, run by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), for a five year contract for radiochemical analysis of terrestrial samples.
Quality Assurance Unit, VLA Sutton Bonington
The VLA's surveillance systems have continued to be strengthened in support of national animal health control policies. The successful validation of the gamma interferon test for bovine tuberculosis at VLA has brought another dimension to the approach to TB disease control. High volume testing facilities have been established at VLA Luddington and VLA Sutton Bonington. Concurrently, the VLA's Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) has been developed and extended to support high volume laboratory testing, not only for gamma interferon, but also in other priority areas including scrapie and avian influenza.
Public health remains a major concern, especially food safety. Progress has been made on several fronts including projects on resistance to antibiotics particularly E.coli, risk analysis and biosecurity interventions to help control Campylobacter in broiler chickens. Molecular techniques to measure genetic differences between Salmonella strains have also been developed.
Our drive to increase work for the commercial sector is proving particularly fruitful. Separate agreements have been signed with two companies to enable real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) assays to be developed and validated at VLA and then made available commercially.
We continue to focus strongly on the personal development of all our staff, as recognised by our retention of the Investors in People Standard. Certification for environmental standards, ISO 14001, was also successfully extended to our regional laboratories network, building on last year's success at the Weybridge site.
Looking ahead...
Following the outcome of the Options Appraisal Study on the relationship between VLA and the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) we are committed to a much closer collaboration between the two institutions, which will include taking forward the redevelopment of virology facilities for both organisations at the Pirbright campus. Also in 2007 we will be subject to an independent audit of all VLA science as part of a five-year cycle to ensure the quality of the science produced by the Defra Agencies.
