Year three, no. 2 - February 2003 

Director’s introduction
Marijan Erceg, MD, MSc

A preliminary meeting to organize the First Croatian Congress on Preventive Medicine and Health Promotion took place in Zagreb on February 3, 2003. It emphasized the importance of preventive medicine and health promotion, also debating a model for organizing the Congress. The Organizing Committee was joined by representatives of public health institutions and other collaborating institutions and societies. Assistant Professor Slobodan Lang, MD, PhD was elected the Chairman of Organizing Committee.

A meeting between county public health institute directors and Government Office for Drug Addiction Control representatives took place 21 February 2003. It discussed organizational possibilities for a network of drug addiction control units at county public health institutes. Devising of a feasible network will be continued by a specially formed working group.

In follow-on to the meeting, the directors warned of CNIPH’s unenviable position and complex conditions in which it operates. A decision was passed stating the necessity of finding a solution to this Institute’s operation through a joint meeting with the minister of health and Croatian Institute for Health Insurance representatives.

Assistant Prof. Marija Strnad, MD, MPH, PhD, deputy general manager

A Round Table Conference ”Disability as Social Responsibility” organised by the State Institute for Protection of Families, Maternity and Youth took place in Zagreb on 12 February. It was held on the initiative of the Croatian government-appointed committee for the disabled and of the Board Marking 2003 as the European Year of Disabled. With a presentation titled “Health of the Disabled in the 21st Century” Assistant Professor Slobodan Lang, MD, and DSc attended the Round Table Conference on the part of CNIPH. The participation of Assistant Prof. Marija Strnad, MD, MPH, and PhD was in the form of a lecture “Croatian Registry of Disabled”. Our plan is for CNIPH to join in the activities marking 2003 as the European Year of Disabled with a presentation of preliminary processing results from the Croatian Registry of Disabled, and with a joint promotion with the Ministry of Health of a translation of the International Classification of Disabilities, Functioning and Health.

Assistant Professor Slobodan Lang, MD, and DSc, deputy director

Taking office as deputy director for CNIPH’s medical affairs I should like to greet everyone. Personally, I firmly believe that public health institutes are a foundation of Croatia’s public health. Also I consider these institutes to be a strategic point both nationally and for Croatia’s integration into Europe. With this in mind, we have started organising the First Croatian Congress on Preventive Medicine and Health Promotion with International Participation. The organizing committee has its meetings Wednesdays at CNIPH. All conclusions, information and the invitation to communicate can be found on CNIPH’s web pages. I take this opportunity to make a call for co-operation by all those who are interested. The director, deputy general manager and myself, have started on a round of all public health institutes in Croatia. We visited the Institute in Koprivnica on February 25, first.

EPIDEMIOLOGY SERVICE (Ministry of Health Reference Centre for Epidemiology) Head, Pr Vlasta Hrabak-Zerjavic, MD, MSc

· Infectious Disease Epidemiology Department

Jointly with the Zagreb School of Medicine (School of Public Health) and Croatian Medical Association’s Croatian Epidemiological Society, CNIP’s Epidemiological Service - which is also the Croatian health ministry’s reference centre for epidemiology - has organised a successful 2-day course titled “Urgency and Relevance in Epidemiology”. For 29 attendees, mostly medical epidemiological specialists, the Course was held 20-21 February 2003 in CNIPH’s lecture-room. Four Service staff members took part as lecturers in course organisation and delivery, one of them also being co-leader of the course (for more details on the course see Epidemiological Service’s web page).

In view of the confirmation of influenza in samples from two children in the Zagreb area on Friday, 21 February, by the Virology Department using the immunofluorescent method, the Service sent out a circular letter announcing the beginning of the influenza season, calling on epidemiologists to send in collectively notifications of cases of influenza.

During February there was an increase in the number of Q-fever cases in the greater Dalmatia area. In collaboration with the Zadar and Split institutes of public health, the CNIPH epidemiologists do epidemiological surveys, also participating in the co-ordination of preventive and anti-epidemic measures. They also collaborate with competent veterinary health authorities. In view of Q-fever being primarily a zoonosis of domestic animals, achieving field collaboration with veterinary health services is essential, since the anti-Q-fever measures taken by the veterinary health service are amongst the most important.

· Chronic Mass Disease Epidemiology Department

Preparations are under way this year to introduce a national “Non-Smokers Day”. Thus March 5 will be marked under the slogan “Croatia breathes” with many promotional and educational activities, in the execution of which institutes of public health will be involved.

For this date activities were conceived with the aim of encouraging the smokers who want to cease smoking not to light a cigarette for 24 hours, in order to make them aware that this is feasible. Likewise, the people who decide to give up smoking will get help in persisting and to abandon smoking permanently.

The European Network of Cancer Registries had a meeting of the Working Group on Automated Cancer Registration at IARC, 11-12 February 2003 in Lyon, France. In the first part of the meeting, the representatives of individual registries made presentations of their registry operations, of existing and potential data sources and automated work processes, respectively plans for their application. The second part of the meeting was devoted to defining web-page on automatic cancer registration in the framework of the European Network of Cancer Registries’ web pages, and to the organization of a Course on Automatic Cancer Case Registration. Ariana Znaor, MD, MSc took part in this meeting.

SOCIAL MEDICINE SERVICE
Head, Pr Marina Kuzman, MD, MSc

With the financial support of the European Community, a Workshop on Biobanks for Health, attended on the part of CNIPH by Pr. Ranko Stevanovic, MD, MSc, was held in Oslo 28-31 January. In addition to representatives of the European Commission, European Economic Development Services Ltd., and Welcome Trust, also taking part in it were principal investigators of the leading biotechnological project- and genome research-related projects, as did some 60 representatives from 17 European countries. The purpose of the Workshop was to reach an agreement on the harmonization of procedures for use of European biobanks and registers in health, which are currently used in investigations of public health importance and for disease control. The workshop was intent on formulating recommendations for co-ordination among biobanks and related to the investigation of individual diseases (archival collections, biological materials, data collected through the research of disease. In addition, the workshop emphasized a need for the development of joint protocols on organisation, storage and keeping of the materials observing the ethical and legal standards. It also expressed its support to the founding of a European network for utilization of biobanks, health registers and data from population studies.

MICROBIOLOGY SERVICE
Head, Dr Vera Katalinic-Jankovic

Bacteriology Department’s General and Bacteriological Serological Diagnosis Unit is preparing the introduction of new laboratory tests for antibody detection by use of the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) method, anti-dsDNA, ANA profile 8, ENA and for the Treponema pallidum bacterium.

ELISA methods and the Western blot method for testing antibodies for Helicobacter pylori are also introduced at the Intestinal Bacterial Infection Diagnostic Unit.

HEALTH ECOLOGY SERVICE
Head, Krunoslav Capak, MD, MSc

The Association’s Medical Ecology Society and CNIPH were the co-organizers of the Seventh Symposium held on 27 February at the Croatian Medical Association. It dealt with the topic Food Additives and Contaminants. Marijan Katalenic, MSc; Krunoslav Capak, MD, MSc; and Assistant Professor Ivan Palecek, DSc lectured on their respective topics of “Food Additives - is the Health Threatened?”, “Monitoring Pesticide Residues in Foods”, and “Additives in Foods and Medicines: Mechanisms of Allergic and Pseudoallergic Reactions”. We hope the presentations and ensuing discussions may help improve the understanding of this problem area among professionals, as opposed to the negative attitudes and atmosphere recently noticed in the media and favouring the safety of traditional agricultural methods and food manufacture.

Efforts to develop software for food, object of common use and drinking water safety analysis and monitoring system have been made at Health Ecology Service, CNIPH, for several months now. Currently in the preliminary model stage, this software is still undergoing finishing and changes. Its trial version is scheduled for presentation at our symposium in Zadar in April 2003. The development of the final version will be the next. After a trial at CNIPH, this version will be offered to all our other public health institutes. We hope that, with some upgrades, this software will constitute a future base for establishing an “Environment and Health” information system as part of the public health information system.