Welcome to the FMD-CSF Coordination Action Information Area

This project was designed to gather and share information relevant to the control of two of the most important diseases in the OIE List of Notifiable Diseases, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and classical swine fever (CSF), both of which have caused devastating outbreaks of disease in Europe and continue to pose a serious threat to our livestock industries.

"Ultimately, the best way of protecting Europe against FMD and CSF is to control them elsewhere at their endemic sources."

Read the Final Executive Summary of the FMD-CSF CA project.

The Key Achievement of the project were:

The formation and strengthening of the global Network of OIE and FAO FMD Reference Laboratories that provides better coordination, cooperation and collaboration across a variety of surveillance and diagnostic activities between the Community and National Reference Laboratories, and International Animal Health Organisations.
The initiation of a Network of FMD Vaccine Bank Managers that provides a platform for a coordinated approach to antigen/vaccine bank activities around the world facilitating the harmonisation of standards for vaccine bank antigens, ensuring better control of FMD in the event of an outbreak, and reducing some of the costs attributing to the maintenance of such reserves with a concept of sharing resources via a virtual global bank.
The project has helped to overcome long lasting problems in coordination of CSF research as well as in harmonization of diagnostic methods and disease control tools. It supported strategic planning in development of new vaccines and in cooperation with another EU program EPIZONE the more effective use of available resources.
The project activated and boosted the collaboration between CSF reference laboratories and promoted research cooperation. It helped to develop improved methods and techniques for diagnostic. CSF diagnostics and vaccine performance were assessed and published in a scientific article. In addition a Workshop on “Classical Swine Fever-Assessment of control tools and research gap” was held in Hannover in cooperation with the American Agricultural Research Service, USA. As a result the report on “Future needs and goals of CSF research” was provided to funding bodies.
An agreement was reached between the CSF reference laboratories on contemporary CSF diagnostic techniques and standards. The results were reviewed in “Diagnostic Manual establishing diagnostic procedures, sampling methods and criteria for evaluation of the laboratory tests for the confirmation of classical swine fever”. To ensure proper and effective diagnostic in cases of emergency like an outbreak of CSF in fully susceptible and densely populated livestock, guidelines for laboratory contingency planning and real-time exercises were established. They will help laboratories to develop their own contingency plans and facilitate real-time exercises.
The partners developed guidelines for the harmonisation and improvement of international comparison testing. Thereupon an advisory board for comparison tests was established.
The collaboration of researchers from different countries reviewed control tools, control strategies and risk analyses for CSF in pigs and wild boar and distributed their results in several scientific publications. During a workshop on “Refinement of disease management and control options” experiences were exchanged between scientists, policy makers, representatives of OIE and FAO, retail organizations, and agrarian associations on the pros and cons of the use of currently available (marker) vaccines in the eradication of CSF, more specifically the options for trade of vaccinated animals and their products. The conclusions and recommendations of this meeting were summarized and forwarded to the EU commission.
The provision a publically open and interactive web based disease awareness, communication and education facility for FMD scientists and stakeholders (http://www.foot-and-mouth.org/). A restricted but interactive CSF database for scientists (http://viro08.tiho-hanover.de/eg/csf).
Open publications of guides and templates for the preparation of Laboratory Contingency Planning documents for FMD and CSF (available at ‘Laboratory Preparedness’ http://www.foot-and-mouth.org/fmd-csf-ca).

WorkPackages

Please use the picture buttons below to access reports for the workpakages

Other WorkPackages

WP9: Central Network Resource

The main aims of the CA were:

To strengthen and coordinate existing initiatives for collaborative actions involving:

The Community Reference Laboratory/National Reference Laboratories network;
The Research Group of FAO’s European Commission for the Control of FMD;
The network of reference laboratories of the Office International des Epizooties;
Other international stakeholders involved in FMD and CSF research;

To initiate new collaborative action on