News

Plenary Meeting “The OIE Working Group Reports on Wildlife” was held on May 28, 2019 in the framework of the 97th OIE General Session. The OIE Delegates, members of the delegations, experts and representatives of different organizations took part in the event. Nikolay Vlasov, the OIE Delegate, and specialists from the FGBI “Federal Centre for Animal Health” – Alexey Igolkin, Head of the ASF Reference Laboratory, and Alexander Kononov, Head of the Department for Animal Diseases Diagnosis and Prevention, participated in the meeting on behalf of Russia.

The OIE representative, Dr William B. Karesh, stressed the importance of activities performed by the OIE focal points aimed at collection of information on wild animal diseases. At the same time it was remarked that only 70% of the countries submit up-to-date and good quality reports which hinders understanding of the actual situation. Also, in 2018 the Commission reviewed several amendments to the OIE Terrestrial code as far as new wild animal diseases are concerned.

Besides, the scientific and technical meeting on ASF was held in the framework of the session. Budimir Plavsic, Head of the OIE Regional Representation in Moscow, and Andrey Rozstalny, FAO representative, gave a speech. The experts dwelled upon the significance and risk of ASF spread in the world focusing on the situation in Europe and Southeast Asia. The experts proposed zoning, compartmentalization, fulfilment of biosafety measures during pig farm visits as basic disease prevention measures. A special role is given to scientific institutions involved in development of ASF diagnostica and the disease specific prevention.