The Lombardy and Emilia Romagna Experimental Zootechnic Institute  (IZSLER) is a Public Law Health Service Body entrusted with independent management, administrative and technical powers, which operates in the ambit of the National Health Service as a technical scientific instrument of the State, the Regions and  the Autonomous Provinces, guaranteeing the Veterinary Services activities and collaboration regarding animal health, healthiness and quality control for foods of animal origin, breeding hygiene and  correct relation between human and animal settlements and the environment.

IZSLER, together with the other Experimental Zooprophylactic Institutes (II.ZZ.SS), makes up a network, which covers  the whole national territory and is composed by 10 Head Offices located in the cities of Brescia, Foggia, Padua, Palermo, Perugia, Portici (NA), Rome, Sassari, Teramo and Turin and by over 90 Diagnostic Sections present in almost all Italian provinces.
 What we do 
L.D. no. 270 of 1993, Law of the Lombardy Region no. 26 of 2000 and Law of Emilia Romagna Region no.3 of 2000 define the Institute‘s main tasks: 

- animal diseases and zoonoses  diagnostic service;
- control activity on foodstuffs intended for human and animal consumption;
- analytic and advisory support to the carrying out of epidemic prevention, sanitation and eradication plans;
- applied research in the field of breeding hygiene and of the improvement of zootechnic production, hence of animal wellbeing;
- epidemiologic monitoring in the ambit of animal health and in that of hygiene of zootechnic and foodstuff production;
- applied and basic experimental research in the veterinary and food ambit. 
Functional organization  
IZSLER‘s Main Office   is located   in Brescia and is organized into 3 Areas which are divided into 3 Departments (complex structures) and Laboratories (simple structures)

- Diagnostic Area
- Service Activities Area
- Food and Transformation Control Area

The "Diagnostic Sections" are peripheral units that operate in the single regions and are prevalently distributed on a provincial basis. Two specific regional technical organizational Coordination centres operate as functional link between the Section network and the Main Office, that is:
- Lombardy Territorial Area
- Emilia Romagna Territorial Area  

Two Epidemiologic Observatories   have been activated by IZSLER in collaboration with the involved Regions:
 O.E.V.R.L. (Region Lombardy Epidemiologic Veterinary Observatory) and C.E.R.E.V. (Emilia Romagna Centre of Veterinary Epidemiology), which have been displaced in the two offices in Brescia and Bologna. Their functions mainly include technical-scientific and information consulting regarding animal health and food hygiene involving the activity of the Local Health Authorities (AA.SS.LL.), of the Institute‘s central and territorial Structures and of the Regional Veterinary Services.

The Headquarters staff includes Management Control, Quality Assurance, and a Operative Unit that follow the management of the research projects, this unit also include an office for the protection of intellectual property. 

Also the Prevention and Protection Service is functionally dependent on the Headquarters, even though hierarchically afferent to the Technical Assets O.U. 


The staff of Sanitary Management includes four structures:
- Regulatory support;
- Lombardy epidemiologic monitoring;
- Emilia Romaga epidemiologic monitoring;
- Risk analysis.
 
Administration Management is made up of the following five Operative Units:
-  General and Legal Affairs O.U.
-  Personnel Management O.U.
-  Economic Financial O.U.
-  Internal Supplies and Sales Department O.U. 
- Technical Assets O.U.
 
The O.U. Information Systems is part of Administration Management staff  
The High Specialization Centres
IZSLER‘s facilities include both the Main Office and the Provincial Diagnostic Sections, units of national and international relevance carrying out highly specialized activities in the field of animal health, food hygiene and zootechnic hygiene, which are identified as High Specialization Centres, nominated by the Ministry of Health and by international Bodies such as the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) of Paris and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
IZSLER‘s internal facilities include in particular the:

OIE Reference Laboratory for:
- Swine Vesicular Disease
- Haemorrhagic Diseases of Lagomorphs 

FAO collaboration centre for:
- Foot-and-mouth disease and Swine Vesicular Disease
 
National Reference Centre for:

- Foot-and-mouth disease and vesicular diseases (Brescia)
- Cellular Substrates - Cell Bank  (Brescia)
- Mycobacterium bovis tuberculosis (Brescia)
- Tularemia (Pavia)
- Leptospirosis (Brescia)
- Chlamydiosis (Pavia)
- Aujeszky disease - Pseudorabies (Brescia)
- Viral diseases of lagomorphs (Brescia)
- Bovine milk quality (Brescia)
- Animal wellbeing (Brescia)
- Paratuberculosis (Piacenza)
- Training in Veterinary Public Health (Brescia)
- European Reference Italian Laboratory for Aujeszky Virus.
How to contact usIstituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell‘Emilia Romagna "Bruno Ubertini"
Via Bianchi 7/9
25124 Brescia
Italy
 
Tel. 0039-030/22901
Fax 0039-030/2425251
Email: info@izsler.it