We sometimes forget in the UK how lucky we are when it comes to disease control. We are an island surrounded by an ocean barrier and have a farming and veterinary infrastructure which allows us to predict and manage disease risk incursion as much as possible. Many European countries are not so lucky. They have large numbers of ‘backyard farms’, relatively scant information networks for farmers and food producers, land borders bringing wildlife into direct contact with domestic animals and some have less capacity for effective veterinary interventions. These infrastructures, social and geographic challenges make them vulnerable to disease incursions from the east and south – but this also makes us, and the rest of Europe, vulnerable to such diseases as well.
The 2 day event combined formal presentations, from the European Commission, the FVO, the OIE, EFSA, the Russian Federation and the Agricultural Ministries of Latvia and Serbia, with workshops. The workshops saw us divided into Poultry, Ruminant and Pig groups to discuss biosecurity best practice for AI, Bluetongue and Classical Swine Fever respectively. The agenda, presentations and concluding remarks can be accessed through the related documents area of this page. (Mr Dimitrii Shkliarov from the Central Science Methodological Veterinary Laboratory, Russian Federation, presented in Russian. It was simultaneously interpreted, but was still quite difficult to follow. The gist of his presentation was that the Russian Federation controlled the food chain and the production methods, so we didn’t have to worry.)
Each of the workshops was asked to consider the following:
- To get an opinion on current biosecurity on farms throughout the EU;
- To highlight best practise themes
- To rank the top 5 themes
The pig workshop focussed on Classical Swine Fever (CSF). The divide in biosecurity practise between the North and Western European countries and the South and Eastern ones was wide. We talked about boundary fencing, washing facilities (for building, staff and vehicles), isolation considerations, quarantine areas and trading risks. We concluded that the top 5 themes of a strong biosecurity system to protect against CSF were:
- How the farm was managed in terms of throughput, staffing, isolation facilities, etc;
- There needed to be an awareness raising campaign amongst pig keepers so that even the backyard operators understood the seriousness of a CSF outbreak;
- When an outbreak occurred, there needed to be regionalisation, categorisation of risk and movement controls to help control, contain or stamp out the disease;
- Cleansing and disinfection needed more focus; and finally
- Surveillance at every level had to become a daily reality regardless of the size of farm enterprise.
The cattle workshop, with Bluetongue as their example disease, listed only 2 top themes:
- There was a need for better training, education and awareness – this would help to win farmers’ engagement. It was highlighted that countries with strong farmer representative organisations had better farmer / veterinary / Government interaction, and levels of co-operation in eradicating disease outbreaks was better; and
- Vaccines needed to be targeted so we needed better epidemiological intelligence taking into account geographic considerations. The EU was challenged to consider creating vaccine banks to cope with future outbreaks.
The poultry workshop explored high pathogenic strains of AI. Additional gravitas was added by the recognition that AI was zoonotic so responsibility for protecting the food chain and consumers seemed to weigh heavy with the delegates. They concluded that:
- Segregation, cleansing and disinfection were basic FAO recommendations but they needed to be used in a proportionate manner;
- We needed campaigns to raise awareness, education and knowledge transfer, and targeted at those involved with poultry;
- There needed to be greater engagement with new technologies and clear educational purpose put behind it;
- To ensure engagement amongst poultry keepers, those they trusted the most (e.g. the farm vet) needed to be brought into the discussion and any awareness raising campaigns; and finally
- Rules around specific management regimes such as organic farming, needed to have exemptions and derogations in place so that farmers felt able to response quickly and effectively during a disease outbreak.
What happens next? Biosecurity guidance will be developed and shared with member states to encourage and incentivise changes in behaviour amongst animal keepers not already engaged with biosecurity best practise. It is clear though that there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution, and biosecurity must be adaptable to cope with the present risk (whatever that might be).
Let’s hope that we have time to get things sorted across Europe before the next big disease challenge occurs.