CRL Duties
Specific activities of the Crustacean Diseases CRL
The Community Reference Laboratory shall:
(a) coordinate, in consultation with the Commission, the methods employed in the Member States for
diagnosing the disease concerned, specifically by:
(i) typing, storing and, where appropriate, supplying strains of the pathogen of the relevant disease
to facilitate the diagnostic service in the Community,
(ii) supplying standard sera and other reference reagents to the national reference laboratories in order
to standardize the tests and reagents used in each Member State, where serological tests are required,
(iii) organising periodic comparative tests (ring tests) of diagnostic procedures at Community level
with the National Reference Laboratories designated by the Member States, in order to provide
information on the methods of diagnosis used and the results of tests carried out in the Community;
(iv) retaining expertise on the relevant disease, pathogen, and other pertinent pathogens to
enable rapid differential diagnosis;
(b) assist actively in the diagnosis of outbreaks of the relevant disease in Member States by receiving
pathogen isolates for confirmatory diagnosis, characterisation and epizootic studies;
(c) facilitate the training or retraining of experts in laboratory diagnosis with a view to
harmonising diagnostic techniques throughout the Community;
(d) collaborate, as regards methods of diagnosing animal diseases falling within their areas of
competence, with the competent laboratories in third countries where those diseases are prevalent;
(e) collaborate with the relevant OIE reference laboratories with regard to exotic diseases
listed in Part II of Annex IV under their responsibility;
(f) collate and forward information on exotic and endemic diseases, that are potentially emerging in
Community aquaculture