Appendix

SVD had been excluded as the cause of these tit:::-es and further refinement of tre test to exclude low false positive readings was now taking place.

Itan 5 - Activities of tre Research Group

Dr. van Bekkum summarized the paper on tte activities of tre Research Group. (Appendix 10) Tte Group reld two meetings in tte last biennium, one in Rio de Janeiro, in 1985, and tre second in Madrid in 1986. Participants had been tte usual group members- and representatives of tre Pan American FMD Centre and tte Plum Island A.nimal Disease Center.

At the meeting in Rio de Janeiro, staff from the PAFMD Centre presented valuable information on tre situation of FMD in South America.

Much attention was paid to metrods in use for evaluating vaccine potency. Tre target animal, tre bovine, remains the system o:: reference. Alternative test metrods are l'Dwever considered useful, altl'Dugh for some virus strains further studies are needed for the establishnent of significant correlations between data obtained in differest tests. ~uture efforts sh:>uld be directed towards inter-laboratory harmoniza~ion of standard :net.rods especially as regards the rrore economical serological met.rods for the evaluation of tte potency of vaccines.

For the characterization of virus strains monoclonal antibodies a=e finding rrore and rrore application. In addition rrolecular biology tecmiques such as polyacrylanide gel electrop.roresis, Tl oligonucleotide finger printing, isoelectric focusing of viral proteins and, recently, rapid sequencing met.rods, provide means for FMDV strain cl:Eracterization. Such analyses have demonstrated potential value, but tte significance of tte correlation of tte results of bioctemical and biological tests of numerous virus strains remains to be determined.

The Group was in favour of a screme whereby in each country groups of vaccinated cattle stould be identified for tte assessment, by challenge infection, of tre level of protection likely to be given by tte available vaccines ~ainst new strains appearing in ti"E field,

It further recommended national autrorities to make use of the antisera from cattle and guinea pigs which are available frcm several laboratories under a sc reme initiated by tte International Association for Biological Standardisation ( IABS) for assessing . tte value of available vaccines cgainst field strains.

It was felt that, prior to a possible attempt to harm::,nize vaccine strains in Surope, more efforts srould be put into studies to define antigenic relationships between currently used vaccine strains and recent field isolates.

At t re meeting of young animals, epizootic in Italy. had been discussed Session. Attention antibodies. in Madrid, tte first item discussed was tte vaccination a problem of great importance in the present FMD Tte reccrnmendations made by tte Group in this respect under Item 3.1 of tre Agenda of tre Twenty-seventh was paid to new observations on tte use of monoclonal