NRL for Special Bacterial Pathogens (NRL SBP)

 

Head of NRL SBP

Assist. Prof.
Borislava Tsafarova, PhD

tel. +359 2 831 91 25

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Laboratory staff:

Ch. assistant
Dr. Iskra Angelova Tomova, MD

expert Legionella and Legionnaires' disease

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Yordanka Dobrinova

biologist

Gatanka Rizova

lab technician

Nedelina Zhelyazkova

medical technician

Emilia Pancheva

lab. worker

 

Activites:

The lab was founded in 1958 as one of the laboratories of the former Republican anti-epidemiological station (later the Republican anti-epidemiological inspection), directly subordinated to the Health Ministry. The laboratory moved to the Department of Microbiology of NCIPD in 1982. Dr. T. Dinev was its head for many years; then Prof. Dr. T. Kantardzhiev was the head until 1994; from 1995 to 2025, the laboratory was headed by Dr. Rumiana Nenova; and from 2025 to the present, by Assist. Prof. Borislava Tsafarova.

NRL SBP is the only civilian laboratory in the country for testing of suspected bioterrorism (BT) samples. It performs highly specialized, primary and reference tesing of clinical samples for anthrax, brucellosis, tularemia, plague, cholera and Legionnaires' disease, as well as water samples for Legionella spp and Francisella spp.

The laboratory experts have been trained in Reference centers in Germany, Unaided Kingdom and Spain.

NRL SBP is accredited according to BDS EN ISO / IEC 17025: 2005.

The modern equipment and the qualified personnel provide high quality of diagnosis and research activities for highly pathogenic zoonotic agents (B anthracis, Brucella spp, F tularensis, Y pestis, B mallei, B pseudomallei), as well as for V cholerae, and Legionella spp.

The laboratory participates in EU projects funded by: Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (EAHC), European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC) and others (EQADeBa; QUANDHIP; EMERGE, SHARP, TERROR, etc.)

NRL SBP conducts annually:

  • Microbiome analysis and bioinformatics with international participation
  • Microbiological diagnosis of highly pathogenic bacterial infections
  • Legionella, Legionnaires disease and other legionnaires - current state of the problem

The laboratory experts provide assistance to all regional laboratories in solving different diagnostic problems, incl emerging and re-emerging bacterial zoonoses, in the country.

Scientific papers

Annual planned activities

Section "Microbiom"

Head of sector

Prof. Stefan Panayotov, PhD

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ch. assistant Vladimir Tolchkov

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