Improving coordination to control African swine fever

摘要

A new initiative called Standing Group of Experts on African Swine Fever (ASF) in the Baltic and Eastern Europe region (hereafter referred toas ‘SGE’) was set up under the GF-TADs umbrella to build up closer cooperation between countries infected with African swine fever (Belarus,Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia,Ukraine) and thereby address the disease in a more collaborative and harmonised manner across the sub-region. The European Commission, the OIE and the FAO complete the SGE member list. The initiative’s modus operandi was agreed during the launch meeting (Bern, September 2014) and the countries committed to demonstrate greater transparency, by fully respecting their noti?cation obligations to the OIE as well as by sharing data and information on surveillance, prevention and control measures. The European Commission is the main contributor to the initiative; however, the OIE and the countries hosting the SGE meetings also support it ?nancially to some extent.