Simulation exercise – African swine fever in Spain

Dr Lucio Ignacio Carbajo Goñi, Deputy Director General of Primary Production Sanitary Safety, Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs, Madrid, Spain, informed the OIE that a field simulation exercise on African swine fever (ASF), will take place in Spain from 10 to 11 November 2011.

This field simulation exercise, in which will participate the Veterinary Services of the Ministry of Environment, Rural and Marine Affairs (MARM) as well as those from the Autonomous Communities of Catalonia, Castile-Leon and Navarre, is aimed at reviewing and verifying the National and Autonomous emergency plans; control measures and the eradication of an ASF outbreak with a view to identifying improvements to be made in the plans, instructions, structures and procedures.

The specific objectives of this simulation exercise are the following:

•  Evaluate the coordination between the MARM and the Autonomous Communities (CCAA) when facing an immediate notification of an ASF outbreak in the European Union (EU) territory.
•  Evaluate the coordination of some Spanish Autonomous Communities with its provincial delegations, its regional agricultural offices and with the MARM;
•  Evaluate the existence and/or the efficiency of some Autonomous Communities contingency plans for ASF;
•  Evaluate the veterinary services capacity of some Spanish Autonomous Communities to identify the farms susceptible to be affected by an ASF outbreak in the EU;
•  Evaluate the veterinary services actions of some Spanish Autonomous Communities in case they need to send potentially ASF infected samples to a laboratory;
•  Evaluate the response of the National reference laboratory in case of reception of the potentially ASF infected samples.
  
  

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Animal Health Information Department
World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)
[email protected]