Padua, Italy. 21-23 October 2024
Last week, from the 21st to the 23rd of October, the 7th Congress of the European Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (EAVLD) was held at the Congress Centre in the Italian city of Padua. This 7th edition of the EAVLD saw 378 registered delegates, with 45 oral presentations and 260 poster presentations, supported by 26 sponsoring companies.
The opening ceremony took place in the Mantegna Auditorium, led by Dr. Antonia Ricci, Director of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie, accompanied by Dr. Luca Bargelloni and Dr. Michele Drigo, both from the University of Padua, and by Dr. Marialaura Corrente, President of the EAVLD, and Dr. Loredana Baldi, President of the Società Italiana di Diagnostica di Laboratorio Veterinaria.
The scientific programme included 8 invited lectures by: Dr. Bernardino Fantini, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, entitled “The Many Histories of One Health and the Shift of Animal Welfare from Tool to Aim“; Dr. Masatoshi Funabashi, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., Tokyo, Japan, on “From One Health to Planetary Health: towards an ecosystem-based approach to food production and public health with Synecoculture“; Dr. Giorgia Angeloni, President of Vétérinaires Sans Frontières International, on “One Health, many lives: practical implementation cases in the Global South“; Dr. Polychronis Kostoulas, Laboratory of Epidemiology and Artificial Intelligence, Faculty of Public Health and One Health, University of Thessaly, Greece, on “Latent Class Models: Validation of Diagnostics without a Reference Test“; Dr. Isabella Monne, National, EU and WOAH Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease, Istituto Zooprofilattico delle Venezie, Italy, on “High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza (HPAI): expect the unexpected“; Dr. Antonio Martinez-Murcia, Department of Microbiology, Miguel Hernández University of Elche and director of genetic PCR solutions™, Spain, on “Phylogenetic diversity and current taxonomy of the genus Mycobacterium: consequences for the diagnosis of tuberculosis“; Dr. Beatriz Romero Martínez, EU Reference Laboratory for Bovine Tuberculosis, VISAVET Health Surveillance Centre, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, on “Diagnostic limitations in controlling the recurrence of bovine tuberculosis in European countries“; Dr. Dorina Timofte, School of Veterinary Science, University of Liverpool, Leahurst Campus, United Kingdom, on “Challenges and new initiatives in veterinary clinical microbiology“.
At the end of the congress, several awards sponsored by FATRO (an Italian pharmaceutical company specialising in veterinary medicines) were presented: the first prize for the best oral presentation went to Salvatore Catania, from the Istituto Zooprofilattico delle Venezie, and a second prize to Viktor Ahlberg, from the National Veterinary Institute of Sweden. The first authors of the posters, Vittoria Di Giovanni, from the Istituto Zooprofilattico della Lombardia e dell’Emilia, and Camille Fleury, from the University of Bern, Switzerland, were also awarded for their work. Two Travel Grant scholarships, sponsored by EAVLD, were awarded to Carlos Velasco Reinaldos, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and Giulia Fanton, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Austria.
The EAVLD General Assembly was held during the congress. Among other discussed issues, the renewal of the Board of Directors was presented. As required by the statutes, Vice-President Dr. Antonio Martínez-Murcia was appointed President, and the other positions were proposed: Jason Sawyer (Vice-President), Dr. Jo Mayers (Secretary), Dr. Marta Pérez-Sancho (Treasurer), Dr. Maria Luisa Marenzoni and Dr. Nicolas Keck (Members), a proposal that was unanimously approved. The new President closed the assembly with emotional words of thanks to Dr. Marialaura Corrente and the members of the previous Board.
The official congress dinner was held at Caffè Pedrocchi, a historic symbol of Padua. Founded in 1831 by the entrepreneur Antonio Pedrocchi, this famous café was known as “the café without doors” because it was open 24 hours a day until 1916.
The closing ceremony was conducted by Dr. Antonia Ricci, Dr. Marialaura Corrente, Dr. Loredana Baldi, and Dr. Martínez-Murcia, who thanked the participants and invited everyone to the next EAVLD Congress in 2026, the venue of which will be announced before the end of 2024. After the closing ceremony, a guided tour of the Palazzo Bo, one of the most emblematic buildings of the University of Padua and its headquarters since the 16th century, took place. The tour included highlights such as the Ancient Court and Heraldic Shields, the Great Hall, the Sala dei Quaranta, the Galileo Tribune, where the famous astronomer taught, and the Medici Hall, renowned for its beauty and rich decoration. This tour allowed visitors to immerse themselves in the history of one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe.
