Vlatko Ilieski

As a Fulbright scholar, during his stay at Purdue University, USA, Prof. Dr. Vlatko Ilieski was introduced to protocols for classification of the severity of scientific procedures on animals. More specifically, he learned how the assigning of a severity classification to each procedure is followed by a search for refinements to reduce pain, suffering, distress and lasting harm to animals.

Special attention during his stay in the USA was given to the implementation of the ARRIVE protocol for reporting in vivo experiments. The experiment on pigs aimed towards developing scientific measures of animals’ well-being, through the study of animal behavior, stress physiology, immunology, neurophysiology, and cognition of animals. The results of the project were published in an article titled “Early life predisposing factors for biting in pigs” in Animal, 2019.

In North Macedonia, Prof. Dr. Ilieski contributed to the transposition of the EU Directive 10/63/EU, the fundamental theme in legislation, which requires that every precaution has to be taken to minimize all forms of suffering for all animals used for scientific purposes. Importantly, in Article 10 of the Macedonian Law on Animal Welfare, a framework for implementation of assessment of procedures and justification in working with experimental animals was included.