3rd Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemiology and Laboratory Networks Meeting for West Eurasia

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is one of the most important transboundary animal diseases globally, affecting the productivity of livestock and disrupting regional and international trade in animals and animal products.

As one of their contributions to the global fight against FMD, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, founded as OIE) developed a 15-year Global FMD Control Strategy in 2012. Under the strategy, several initiatives were identified to establish an enabling environment to make FMD control a feasible option. Among these initiatives are the strengthening of Veterinary Services in order to enable better control of priority animal diseases like FMD, and to encourage countries to progressively control FMD using PCP-FMD methodology.

It is against this background that the FMD Working Group (FMD-WG), under the umbrella of the FAO/ WOAH Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs), and with technical support from the European Commission for the control of FMD (EuFMD), initiated a meeting for epidemiology and laboratory experts (Epidemiology and Laboratory Networks meeting) in the West Eurasian region in August 2021.