What is the reference?
The reference is an essential component of the health security system. The activity of reference laboratories is essential in order to improve knowledge and identification of the major dangers we face in food safety, animal health and plant health.
On a daily basis, the role of a reference laboratory, whether national or European, is to develop analysis methods, distribute them to a network of approved field laboratories and check the capacity of these field laboratories. to implement these analytical methods. The reference laboratories are therefore responsible for the distribution of high-performance analysis methods allowing good reactivity in the event of a health crisis.
ANSES’s animal health laboratory is, for example, a national, European and international reference laboratory for foot-and-mouth disease. In case of suspicion of a case of foot-and-mouth disease, the scientific teams of the laboratory are mobilized 7 days a week and able to set up an analysis method allowing to obtain a confirmation or a refutation of the case in less than 4 hours. .
The development of effective methods is the guarantee of increased responsiveness of public authorities during the emergence or resurgence of pathogens. This ensures an efficient and responsive health security system.
What is the role of reference laboratories in the event of health crises?
Reference laboratories are often on the front line during health crises. Capable of rapidly detecting the emergence of pathogens, they provide scientific and technical support to risk managers so that they can take the appropriate measures.
Two recent health crises have illustrated the importance of these reference laboratories, both at national and European level. During recent episodes of avian flu, the ANSES laboratory in Ploufragan, which holds the national reference mandate forInfluenza avian, was able to determine if the strains ofInfluenza avian in question were either low or highly pathogenic. The results of these analyzes enabled the Ministry in charge of Agriculture to take appropriate management measures.
More recently, as the European reference laboratory for Listeria, ANSES’s food safety laboratory conducted analyzes on a strain of Listeria monocytogenes which affects five EU Member States (Austria, Denmark, Finland, United Kingdom and Sweden) since 2015. These analyzes have traced the origin of this strain to frozen maize probably produced in Hungary and packaged in Poland. In this case, the ANSES laboratory provided valuable scientific support for the management of this health crisis by the European Food Safety Authority.
What is the link between research and reference in the Agency’s activities?
ANSES holds 65 national reference mandates, 9 European mandates and 26 international mandates. The reference activities are an asset for the Agency’s health security missions. Anticipating the health consequences for humans of their exposure to biological, physical or chemical agents, whether they are linked to animal or plant pathologies, to food or environmental contamination, is one of the fundamental roles of ANSES.
At the heart of these laboratories, the reference supplements the research activities carried out by the scientific teams. It is a continuity and the same profession whose final objective is to understand the phenomena of contamination of food, animals or even plants. Our research contributes to the development of ever more efficient analysis methods. Our reference and monitoring activities enable the creation of biological collections essential for research and risk assessment. For example, the network Salmonella made it possible to detect the potential emergence of Salmonella Kentucky CipR, highly resistant to ciprofloxacin, and thus inform public decision to stop its spread.
At Agency level, reference activities also feed into the risk assessment carried out by our groups of experts. Indeed, the reference laboratories held by ANSES make the data and results they produce available to the experts in charge of risk assessment.
The close link between research, reference and risk assessment activities therefore makes it possible to acquire the tools best suited to monitoring these pathogenic agents. ANSES thus addresses health issues using a global and cross-functional approach, which enables it to be ever more effective in anticipating risks. This contributes to strengthening the quality of the health safety system, at the service of consumers.