Designated WOAH reference expert
To be determined. For questions, please contact: laura.lalonde@inspection.gc.ca
The Centre for Food-borne and Animal Parasitology at the Saskatoon Laboratory was designated as a World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) Reference Laboratory for trichinellosis in 2002.
Mandate
To improve domestic and global food safety and international market access related to Trichinella. This includes:
- Developing and harmonizing reliable detection methods
- Monitoring, surveillance and disease or outbreak investigation
- Information exchange, collaboration and networking
- Capacity building
Latest updates
- The latest WOAH Annual Reports are available online (once on the page, scroll to "Trichinellosis")
Activities and services
- Diagnostic services (including monitoring and surveillance) for Trichinella
- Providing reference materials, training and scientific advice related to Trichinella detection and control nationally and internationally
- Developing and validating methods for improved direct and indirect detection of Trichinella in food animals and their products
- Qualification of external laboratories to test for Trichinella in meat for export and ready-to-eat (RTE) pork products
- Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and molecular characterization of Trichinella
- Providing national and international proficiency samples for Trichinella digestion assay
- Quality assurance in diagnostic testing for Trichinella
Current research interests
- Studying the ecology and biology of a new species of Trichinella (T. chanchalensis) in the North American Arctic
- Use of NGS and bioinformatics to identify and characterize food-borne parasites
- deep amplicon sequencing of the ITS-1 region for high-resolution detection of all Trichinella spp. comprising mixed infections in muscle tissue samples
- Transmission patterns of zoonotic and emerging pathogens (including Trichinella) in Canada's North, a Genomic Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change (GenARCC) project and part of the Genomics Research and Development Initiative
More information
- Trichinellosis [woah.org]
- CFIA reference laboratories and collaborating centres
- Reference Laboratories [woah.org]
- Twinning is winning: collaborating for the global management of animal diseases