
Pr Dr An Van Nieuwenhuyse
- Department
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH PROTECTION - Function
Chef de département - Phone
+352 28 100 610 - Email
An.vanNieuwenhuyse@lns.etat.lu
The department provides analytical services for official monitoring on behalf of institutions involved in inspection and monitoring, as well as for related ministries and administrations.
The sampling carried out by these laboratories focusses on matrices other than those of human biology: food and food supplements, air, dust, soil, containers and objects, etc. The samples encompass the same matrices as well as biological specimens (blood, hair, etc.). The services are quite varied (chemical, bacteriological, physical, etc.) without losing sight of their role and importance in relation to national sovereignty, for example in the case that foreign laboratories are unable to respond if there is an international crisis.
In the course of developing its activities, the LNS is working to increase its involvement in international monitoring networks (such as reference laboratories) and in national monitoring programmes (for example, food and consumer products of concern to health authorities or ones possibly seized by customs).
The department is made up of the following 2 services :
and has access to shared analytical platforms of the LNS along with their heavy equipment.
The activities of the environmental hygiene and human biological monitoring service are directed towards the detection of physical and/or microbiological components as well as inorganic and organic chemicals in the home or office environment, and the assessment of their impact on health.
The activities of the food monitoring service involve the performance of chemical, biochemical and microbiological testing of food samples or samples of animal food that have been collected by various authorities involved in the official monitoring of the food chain.