Historia del Instituo Lorente, (1894-1997)

Introduction. This thesis is the result of study of the Llorente Institute since its origins, contemporaries of the Pasteur Institute in France and in Sclavo Institute in Italy, until its disappearance in 1997 as a pharmaceutical laboratory. Synthesis. The first objective was to demonstrate the development of research activity of Llorente Institute. It was also intended to clarify what were the real causes of its decline, which can be attributed not only to internal factors, but also to general policies that concerned a set of pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Vicente Llorente figure is not the essential part of this thesis, although it have made new contributions about on their way through politics as a member of the Restoration Parliament during the legislatures between 1899 and 1905. Research carried out in the General Archive of the State Administration and in the Mercantile Register are the main sources of this research, together with the testimony and unpublished documents provided by his last owners. Also, it has been important to the development of products that constituted the vademecum of Llorente Institute...

Modular framework to assess the risk of African swine fever virus entry into the European Union

BACKGROUND The recent occurrence and spread of African swine fever (ASF) in Eastern Europe is perceived as a serious risk for the pig industry in the European Union (EU). In order to estimate the potential risk of ASF virus (ASFV) entering the EU, several pathways of introduction were previously assessed separately. The present work aimed to integrate five of these assessments (legal imports of pigs, legal imports of products, illegal imports of products, fomites associated with transport and wild boar movements) into a modular tool that facilitates the visualization and comprehension of the relative risk of ASFV introduction into the EU by each analyzed pathway. RESULTS The framework's results indicate that 48% of EU countries are at relatively high risk (risk score 4 or 5 out of 5) for ASFV entry for at least one analyzed pathway. Four of these countries obtained the maximum risk score for one pathway: Bulgaria for legally imported products during the high risk period (HRP); Finland for wild boar; Slovenia and Sweden for legally imported pigs during the HRP. Distribution of risk considerably differed from one pathway to another; for some pathways, the risk was concentrated in a few countries (e.g., transport fomites), whereas other pathways incurred a high risk for 4 or 5 countries (legal pigs, illegal imports and wild boar). CONCLUSIONS The modular framework, developed to estimate the risk of ASFV entry into the EU, is available in a public domain, and is a transparent, easy-to-interpret tool that can be updated and adapted if required. The model's results determine the EU countries at higher risk for each ASFV introduction route, and provide a useful basis to develop a global coordinated program to improve ASFV prevention in the EU.