Twelve years of activity of the international Trichinella reference centre

The ITRC is the official reference laboratory of both the International Com mission on Trichinellosis (since 1988) and the international Office of Epiz ootics (since 1992). The ITRC was created as a repository for Trichinella s trains and as a source of materials and information for international resea rch in 1988. To date, about 900 isolates of human and animal origin from th roughout the world have been examined and identified by new procedures deve loped at the ITRC or in collaboration with other institutions. Using materi al from this collection, the ITRC has provided a complete revision of the s ystematics of the genus Trichinella. The ITRC database can be consulted by accessing the web-site: www.simi.iss.it/trichinella/index.htm.