Russia hosts international meeting on transboundary animal diseases
The Russian city of Vladimir today hosts a two-day FAO regional workshop on Foot-and-Mouth Disease and other transboundary animal diseases. The focus is on “Risk-based approaches and Emergency Management.”
The four-strong FAO team, along with seasoned experts from Russian the Research Institute for Animal Health and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) will present an array of topics from epidemiology, to risk-based approaches and emergency preparedness on several different diseases.
The workshop in Vladimir is a follow-up activity of the West Eurasia Road Map meeting held in Kyrgyzstan in 2016, and Foot-and-Mouth epidemiology and laboratory network meeting in Georgia in September 2017. It is co-organized by the Russian Research Institute for Animal Health, which was been granted the status of FAO Reference Centre for Foot-and-Mouth Disease for Central Asia and Western Eurasia in 2013. The Institute currently employs nearly 900 highly qualified specialists.
Participants in the workshop will discuss Foot-and-Mouth Disease and other transboundary animal diseases, such as lumpy skin disease and African swine fever, and related control, surveillance and eradication strategies.
The “progressive control pathway” is the main instrument for controlling Foot-and-Mouth disease both globally and in Europe and Central Asia.
In 2014-16, lumpy skin disease, after originating and moving out of Africa, spread across the Balkans and the Caucasus, arriving to the southern part of the Russian Federation. African swine fever similarly jumped from southeast Africa to Georgia in 2007, from where it spread relentlessly throughout the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.
The objective is to improve collaboration and mutual experience sharing within Trans-Caucasus and Central Asian countries and Russian Federation on Foot-and-Mouth Disease and other priority diseases – to enhance the capacity of veterinary services in epidemiology, risk-based approaches and emergency preparedness.
“Transboundary animal diseases like Foot-and-Mouth Disease, African swine fever and lumpy skin disease are of great national and international importance due to their severe impact on animal health and their effect both on trade and production,” said FAO animal health officer Mark Hovari. “Workshops, such as the one in Vladimir, that aim at bringing together regional experts and expertise to efficiently combat animal disease are key in the fight to control transboundary animal diseases.”
FAO is in a position to share with countries at least three valuable assets it has developed, according to FAO animal health officer Daniel Beltran-Alcrudo:
- a field manual to provide private and official field veterinarians, para-professionals and laboratory diagnosticians the information needed for the detection and diagnosis of lumpy skin disease (also available in Russian);
- a manual on African swine fever: detection and diagnosis containing information needed to promptly diagnose and react to an outbreak or case of African swine fever (also available in Russian);
- the special issue of EMPRES-Animal Health 360 on Lumpy Skin Disease.
29 November 2017, Vladimir, Russian Federation