Österreichische Agentur für Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit GmbH www.ages.at

AGES – Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety

Health for Humans, Animals and Plants

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Founded on June 1, 2002 Fusion of 18 Federal Agencies and Offices

Health and Food Safety Act (GESG) Legal basis

Republic of Austria Owner and Main Contracting Authority

> 1,400 Staff at its locations in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Mödling and Salzburg

900,000 samples tested with 7.2 million individual analyses/year

Data, Facts, Figures

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AGES Structure

Food

Sec

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Vet

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ary

Med

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Food

Saf

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Pub

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Aus

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Med

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Dev

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Age

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Radiation Protection

Data, Statistics & Integrative Risk Assessment

Knowledge Transfer & Applied Research

Division

Department

1) 2)

1) Austrian Federal Office for Food Safety 2) Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care

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Statutory Tasks

Protection of health for humans, animals and plants, in particular …

• Analysis and assessment of agricultural equipment (seeds, pesticides, animal feed, …)

• International Treaty (Plant Genetic Resources)

• Analysis and assessment of products according to the Marketing Standards Act

• Analysis and assessment of samples according to the Food Safety and Consumer Protection Act (LMSVG)

• Contributing to the prevention of animal diseases and diseases that can be transmitted between species, monitoring animal health, testing animals for slaughter and meat

• Prevention of infectious diseases (reference centre management, …)

• Processing data of swimming areas

• Analysis and assessment of medicinal products

• Market surveillance of medical devices

• Research, information and cooperation

• Cooperation with national and international organisations

• Statements on drafts of relevant legal norms, research projects and parliamentary inquiries

www.ages.at

Division of Public Health

• Institutes • Centre for anthropogenic Infections Vienna

• Centre for zoonotic Diseases Graz

• Centre for watersaftey Linz

• Tasks • Infectious disease diagnostics

• Operation of several Reference laboratories

• Development of diagnostic methods

• National and international reporting

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www.ages.at

AGES – Centre for anthropogenic Infections Vienna • Reference laboratories

• Tuberculosis • Clostridium difficile • Legionellosis • Vibrio cholerae • WHO-Polio reference laboratory • Highly pathogenic bacteria • Yersinia pestis • Diphtheria • 24h Rabies consulting

• Public health surveillance projects • Austrian Mosquito surveillance from 2011 ongoing • Starting 2013 Austrian tick surveillance

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www.ages.at

AGES – Centre for anthropogenic Infections Vienna

• Medical microbiology • EN 17025 laboratory accreditation

• BSL2 and BSL3 facilities

• Clinical molecular biology • EN 17025 laboratory accreditation

• Open tender for a NG-System

• Watersaftey and Hygiene • full EN 17025 laboratory accreditation

• EPIET- host side

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Training programmes based at AGES

Participation of Austria since 2006 - European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET)

Two tracks - EU-track: 1 alumni -MS-track: currently 1 fellow (since 2011)

EAP: European associated programme/Taiwan CDC (since: 2007)

- 2 alumni (cohort 13, 15) - currently 1 fellow

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Training opportunities

Outbreak investigation in - zoonotic, respiratory, vaccine preventable diseases,…

ID Surveillance: Data analysis/ Data interpretation

- IMD, IPD, TBC, zoonosis, Influenza Research project in HCF-associated diseases Introduction to molecular microbiology at the diverse Reference Laboratories

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In cooperation with EPIET/EAP

Successfully investigated outbreaks!