Although the individual services have existed for longer, they were previously distributed among three different ministries. The ALVA now falls under the tutelage of the Ministry of Agriculture, Viticulture and Rural Development.
Minister Claude Haagen recently paid a visit to the Administration’s laboratory in Dudelange, which is located right next to the National Health Laboratory (LNS). He explained: “There is a connection between illnesses affecting humans and those affecting animals. I don’t really need to explain this in light of the coronavirus. It is therefore important for us to have an interplay between veterinary lab, animal wellbeing, food safety, and the LNS. The latter looks at human connections and this interplay will be further boosted.”
The government lab for veterinary medicine, which has existed in Dudelange since 2017, is for instance analysing dead birds and the bird flu is currently alarming people, says Dr Manon Bourg: “Our neighbouring countries often have cases and a few years ago, we had African swine fever at the Belgian border. This had us concerned, but now it is bird flu that is alarming everyone. We are helping to monitor the situation so that no major problem occurs in Luxembourg. And if that still happens, then we help fighting it by providing analyses as quickly as possible.”
The laboratory tends to complete about 350 autopsies and over 300,000 analyses in the span of a year, out of which 7,500 have to do with food safety. According to ALVA director Dr Felix Wildschütz, the Administration is now in charge of monitoring food from farm to table, meaning they will analyse samples along the complete supply chain.
