Improving coordination to control African swine fever

摘要

A new initiative called Standing Group ofExperts on African Swine Fever (ASF) in the Balticand Eastern Europe region (hereafter referred toas ‘SGE’) was set up under the GF-TADs umbrellato build up closer cooperation between countriesinfected with African swine fever (Belarus,Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia,Ukraine) and thereby address the disease in amore collaborative and harmonised manner acrossthe sub-region. The European Commission, theOIE and the FAO complete the SGE member list.The initiative’s modus operandi was agreed duringthe launch meeting (Bern, September 2014) andthe countries committed to demonstrate greatertransparency, by fully respecting their notificationobligations to the OIE as well as by sharing dataand information on surveillance, prevention andcontrol measures. The European Commission isthe main contributor to the initiative; however, theOIE and the countries hosting the SGE meetingsalso support it financially to some extent.The ASF situation in wild boar and relatedprevention and control measures were discussedin depth during the first meeting of the SGE,held in Minsk, Belarus, in December 2014.The recommendations of the OIE–CIC JointInternational Meeting on African Swine Feverand other animal health issues at the wildlife–livestock–human interface (30 June – 1 July2014)1 served to frame the discussions,emphasising the indispensable collaboration ofveterinarians, hunters and wildlife and gamemanagement organisation representatives.