Case studies

The Italian Ministry of Health, with a decree of 30^th May 2017, activated at the Central Office of the IZSAM (Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise - Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Abruzzo and Molise) the National Reference Center for Genomic Sequences of pathogenic microorganisms (GENPAT).

One of the main tasks of the GENPAT is to create a national platform for the collection and conservation of genomic sequences of pathogenic microorganisms and for the execution of bioinformatics analysis and archiving and sharing of results, in order to improve the surveillance of problems related to infectious diseases of animals, including zoonotic and food-borne diseases.

The platform was built during this year using the new version 3 of CMDBuild.

CMDBuild helped to design a common open source platform for the collection and analysis of surveillance data, and data derived from zoonotic outbreaks, even of food origin.

The goal of the platform is to provide data that is rapidly available, usable and useful in epidemic situations and for risk assessment, also providing IT tools to do so.

The strengths of CMDBuild have been above all:

• the flexibility of the data schema, which is fundamental for facing new needs for data recording and sharing;
• the ability to import data from other sources and to provide an interoperability system for data access, allowing a close integration with the National database of animal registries (BDN) and with other national veterinary information systems;
• the possibility to extend the system interacting with other WEB applications.

The CMDBuild platform was also used in the European project OHEJP COHESIVE, in which IZSAM is involved.

The European project COHESIVE aims at a world with less incidence of diseases transmitted from animals to humans (defined as zoonotic), promoting a close collaboration, at all levels, between the veterinary and human sectors (“One Health” approach).

Following serious outbreaks in past years, such as the BSE in the United Kingdom and the Q fever in the Netherlands, in some countries this collaborative approach has been implemented and have been tested the advantages to tackle the new emerging zoonoses, among which antimicrobial resistance and food-borne zoonoses.

To stimulate the strengthening of the collaboration between human and veterinary health in all the countries of the European Union, it was necessary to have common procedures and tools, and in this context CMDBuild has been used to produce a prototype information system that each member state can now adopt.

At this link it is available the video presented at the XLIII Conference IEA - 2019.

CMDBuild DAY 2020 presentation

You can also have a look at the speech done by Adriano Di Pasquale at the CMDBuild DAY 2020 event.