Simulation exercise: Foot and mouth disease and anthrax in the United States of America

Dr John Clifford, Deputy Administrator, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the United States Department of Agriculture informed the OIE that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Veterinary Services (VS), Emergency Management & Diagnostics (EM&D), National Veterinary Stockpile (NVS) in coordination with the Multi-State Partnership for Security in Agriculture (MSPSA) and Canada, will conduct a two part multi-state exercise between 16 and 19 June 2009 focused on an intentional introduction of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the United States.The exercise called “National Veterinary Stockpile (NVS) Multi-State Logistics Exercise” will be a combination tabletop (TTX) and full-scale exercise (FSE). The TTX will take place on 16-17 June 2009 in Wheaton, Illinois. The FSE will involve three states (IL, KY, NE) and Canada conducting receive, stage, store (RSS) operations on 18 and 19 June 2009.

The APHIS VS and MSPSA FMD logistics exercise will test various emergency response activities and provide valuable federal and state training including:

• Challenges of coordinating a logistical response in multiple states and locations;
• Intrastate, interstate, and state/federal communication and collaboration;
• Continuity of operations planning.

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