FAO and NORAD convene a round table discussion: Lessons Learned on Response Actions to Aquatic Disease Emergencies

A Round-Table Discussion on Moving Forward through Lessons Learned on Response Actions to Aquatic Disease Emergencies will be held at FAO Headquarters from 16-18 December 2019. The Round Discussion will bring together some 43 aquatic animal health experts from 22 countries to review country experiences in dealing with health emergencies in aquatic animals in both aquaculture and wild populations. During Day 1, presentations on the role of the Competent Authority and national experiences in dealing with aquatic animal mass mortality events will be presented by representatives of 10 countries (People's Republic of China, Ghana, Indonesia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Norway, Philippines, Thailand, Viet Nam, United States of America, Zambia), followed by presentations of the role of NACA, OIE and FAO in supporting national disease outbreak investigations. On the morning of Day 2, a series of presentations on "Producer and research/academic sectors: role and activities/experiences related to investigating specific mass mortalities of aquatic animals" will be given by MSD (Belgium), IZSV (Italy), WBVR (Netherlands), CEFAS (UK) and MSU (USA) , followed by a working group activity on "Essential elements of an effective and timely response action to aquatic animal disease emergencies". In the afternoon, a draft Decision Tree for Dealing with Aquatic Animal Mass Mortality Events (MMEs) will be presented by FAO as the basis for a guidance manual to assist front-line responders in dealing with investigations of MMEs. A Working Group discussion will be held on the Decision Tree, and the contents to be included in an associated guidance manual that will be developed. Finally, on Day 3, the participants will hear a presentation on the Global Burden of Animal Diseases, and will have Working Group discussions on "Considerations for developing a framework for the systematic impact assessment of aquatic animal diseases"; and a final session on "Identifying key elements for a project proposal to improve national response actions to aquatic animal disease emergencies." The Round-table Discussion is being lead by FAO Officers (Dr M. Reantaso, Dr H. Bin) assisted by Drs R. Arthur (Canada), D. Huchzermeyer (South Africa) and R. Subasinghe (Sri Lanka).

Annex 1

Annex 2

Presentations and documents

More information: Melba.Reantaso@fao.org