Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), Vienna, Austria
Contact person
Univ. Prof. Dr. Franz AllerbergerÖsterreichische Agentur für Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit (AGES)
Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety
Spargelfeldstraße 191
A-1220 Vienna
Tel. +43 50555 35500
Mobile: +43 664 8398029
Description of the institute
The Agency is a state owned exempt limited company (company with limited liability) under Austrian law having a staff of about 1350.The Minister for Health and Women's Issues and the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management act as envoys of the Republic of Austria in their respective area of competence.
The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES) is a merger (June 2002) of:
- 5 Federal Public Health Laboratories,
- 3 agricultural research centres,
- 5 food control institutes and
- 4 veterinary institutes
- by an effective and efficient evaluation of food safety and
- by the epidemiological surveillance of communicable and
non-communicable infectious diseases.
On February 1, 2004, the Agency was also put in charge of the execution of medicines and medical devices inspections.
As of January 2, 2006 the Agency is also in charge of all Austrian agenda of drug registration and control. For legal reasons, a Federal Office for Food Safety had to be established in parallel to the Agency to enable the execution of laws as authority of first instance. Although bearing the name "food safety", the Federal Office does not act as authority in connection with food but with agricultural means (e.g. seed, plant protection products, feed, and fertiliser) and marketing standards for fruit, vegetables and fish.
The Federal Office for Safety in Health Care acts as authority of first instance for drug registration and control.
Training site/Training Locations
The Austrian EPIET Training programme provides basically 4 training sites according to the 4-parts structure of the training programme:one at AGES, the Agency of Health and Food Safety, Vienna, Austria,
one at the Institute of Hygiene, Microbiology & Tropical Medicine housing the National Reference
Laboratory for Nosocomial Infection & Antimicrobial Resistance, Linz, Austria, one at the
AIDS/HIV Surveillance Unit, Vienna and one at the Epidemiological Observatory, Bozen, Italy.
The AGES related part of the training programme is based at three locations:
At the Institute of Clinical Microbiology and Hygiene, Vienna where the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology is based, the National Reference Centre for Legionella infection capturing the National Surveillance centre and the National Reference Laboratory for Legionnaires disease, and the National Reference Laboratory for TB are housed.
At the Headquarter of the Agency, Vienna, where the Laboratory of molecular microbiology - headed by Franz Allerberger - is located
At the Institute of Biostatistics, Graz, Austria housed by the AGES Institute for clinical microbiology and hygiene, where also the National Reference Centre for Salmonella infection is based
The training sites offer many opportunities in the field of epidemiology applied to infectious diseases control and prevention in Austria, few are listed below.
Training opportunities/Training Objectives, Austria
- Outbreak investigation ID Surveillance activities: Analyses/ Evaluation of the Legionnaires Disease (LD) surveillance system, Evaluation of the TB surveillance system; Surveillance
- Data analysis & Data interpretation
- Introduction/collaboration in data collating for the National/European Zoonoses report
- Basic introduction in biostatistics at the Biostatistics Unit; sample size calculation, sample schemes, selection procedure, statistical significance tests, regression modelling, standardization methods, survival analysis, spatial analysis (ARC
- GIS, Regio Graph), time series analysis.
- Basic Introduction in genotyping at the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, AGES Headquarter; applied molecular epidemiology, combining conventional and molecular epidemiology
- Study protocol: design, conduct, analysis, interpretation, publication of epidemiological studies.
- National/ European activities and collaboration in EARSS (European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System) and ESAC (European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption)
- Insights in Hospital Infection Control
Evaluation of the bacterial meningitis surveillance system in S-Tyrol
Using Routine data for calculating vaccine coverage
Survey on parental compliance with recommendations on childhood immunization
Public Health Strategies to increase vaccine coverage
Planning and Implementation of a surveillance system for tick- borne diseases
Planning of a nosocomial surveillance system
Training supervision
SupervisorUniv Prof Dr med F Allerberger MPH
Head of AGES area Human Medicine, Training Programme Coordinator for "Microbiology and Infectious Diseases" at the Medical School Salzburg.
Facilitators
Doz DI Dr Klemen FuchsHead of Institute for Biostatistics
Prof Dr med Marcus Müllner MSc
Head of AGES area PharmMed, Consultant in epidemiology
Dr med Daniela Schmid MSc
ID Control Physician at the Dep. of ID Epidemiology based at the Institute for Clinical Microbiology & Hygiene; Trainee in Clinical Microbiology & Hygiene
Univ Prof Dr med Helmut Mittermayer
Head of the Institute of Hygiene, Microbiology & Tropical Medicine
National Reference Center for Nosocomial Infections and Antibiotic Resistance,
National Reference Center for Hepatitis,
Elisabethinen Hospital Linz, Austria
Dr med Norbert Vetter
Head of AIDS/HIV Surveillance Unit
Otto Wagner Hospital, Vienna
Dr med Peter Kreidl MSc, DTMH
Infectious Disease Epidemiologist,
EPIET Alumni Cohort 3
Epidemiological Observatory
Bozen, South Tyrol, Italy
Language requirements
English, optional GermanTraining history
Number of EPIET fellows trained at institute: New site 2006 Available as a training site for cohort 12: Yes