The Asociación Española de Veterinarios Especialistas en Diagnóstico Laboratorial – AVEDILA – (Spanish Association of Veterinaries Specialised in Laboratory Diagnoses) was founded in 1992 with the purpose of promoting work sessions, conferences and technical support to professionals interested in the topic, as well as cooperating with the different national and international institutions in the field of veterinary laboratory diagnoses.

Now, 15 years later, we are honoured to invite you to the 14th International Symposium of the World Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians, which will be held in Madrid from the 17th to the 20th June 2009. Together with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnosticians (WAVLD), we are organising an interesting Scientific Programme, which we hope will address the most interesting aspects within the challenges faced by our increasingly global world in the field of animal health. We will make a special emphasis on emerging and re-emerging diseases, many of them with a zoonotic character, that not only entail a clear health risk, but also bring about a social alarm that must be offset with clear information and precise actions in times of crisis. It is our obligation to fight in order to reduce the gap between the developed world and the less favoured countries, and especially, for something that should be aright of all the inhabitants in the world: the right to a good health status.

We cannot but mentioning here the unique possibility an event of this kind offers. Not only will the scientific programme be attractive for visitors from abroad. They will also have the chance of knowing a city like Madrid, which in recent years has been able to join together its position of a major city with a wide cultural offer and an environmental-friendly evolution, which are turning it into a European reference. And together with Madrid, the rest of Spain, with millions of sites for all tastes: beauty created both by man and by nature, all this seasoned with the Spanish personality, which makes nobody feel a foreigner in our land.

We want to invite you all to participate at the Conference with your scientific contributions and your physical presence. We would also like to invite collaborating Firms to contribute to the success of the Symposium.
Be sure that AVEDILA will devote our commitment and illusion to make your stay as pleasant and useful as possible, both in scientific and in personal terms.

We are looking forward to see you all at the 14th WAVLD Symposium.

Jose Luis Blanco
Organising Committee