Closing Remarks The Chairman, on behalf of all members and observers, proposed a vote of thanks to Dr Pinheiro and Dr Martins and the marvellous hospitality and organization, and to Alvarina Rosa, whose efforts as liaison officer to ensure smooth running of the Session were most appreciated. He considered the ExC 76 had been a very enjoyable and productive meeting, and thanked Dr Herzog for the offer to host the 77th ExC in Vienna. The Recommendations reached are as follows:
On the International FMD situation 1. Members States should be aware of the relative increase in FMD type A outbreaks in Turkey in 2008, and review their precautionary measures during the upcoming period; 2. Member States take note of the recommended priority vaccine bank antigens, as recommended by the report of the WRL/CRL; 3. The Turkish authorities are urged to increase their efforts to contain FMD type A infection, with additional effort to regionalize infection and rapidly identify and trace linkages between each outbreak (note also R#27 to support study on full length sequencing); 4. Additional effort is made to ensure a continual supply from Turkey and Iran to the WRL of FMDV virus isolates, or at the minimum, sufficient sequence information, to track emergence of variants in these countries; 5. FAO continues to place effort to collect and submit type A viruses from Afghanistan/Pakistan/west Asia to the WRL to monitor for possible appearance of an epidemic of type A viruses which would not be covered by A22 Iraq vaccine; 6. Contingency plans are developed and tested in the Caucasus, Iran and Turkey in preparation for the possible emergence of type A viruses poorly covered by A 22 Iraq, and the status of these plans is keep under review by the Commission. On the priority vaccine antigens for use in West EurAsia 7. Type O Manisa, type A22 Iraq, and Asia-1 Shamir remain the recommended types and strains for inclusion in vaccination programmes in West EurAsia to cover the upcoming 6 month risk period. Countries should undertake risk assessments before omitting one or more of these strains from the routine programme. Countries which utilize routine vaccination should ensure access to vaccines in emergency situation against less frequent FMDV strains, in the medium priority category of the WRL. On the priority vaccine antigens for use in North Africa 8. The Secretariat should ensure the WRL vaccine recommendations for North African countries are passed to the relevant authorities; these include the use of type O Manisa and type A Eritrea or A Kenya 22, assuming the main type A risk is from East Africa; 9. A systematic study of vaccine suitability against west and east African, A and SAT2 (and possibly SAT1 viruses) is urgently required to provide vaccine recommendations for west and eastern North African countries along the Mediterranean basin, and the WRL/CRL should develop a proposal to address this gap; 10. The WRL should bring to attention of the EuFMD and EC, results of vaccine matching tests which fail to identify a closely matched vaccine held in banks or by commercial suppliers. Of concern is the finding that A ETH 4/2007 was not matched by A22 or A Eritrea ( r < 0.15) vaccines. Adaptation of diagnostic protocols of member states (MS) for the currently circulating FMDV strains 11. NRLs of MS in Europe should ensure that their diagnostic procedures can detect type O panAsia II and type A Iran 05. The WRL should supply MS on demand with recommended type strains for these virus genotypes or inactivated materials that will enable NRLs to validate their diagnostic procedures; 12. The WRL should maintain on its website the recommended primers for 5’ UTR and 3D genes for detection of the priority circulating strains in the region, to which EUFMD MS are at risk. 76th Session of the Executive Committee of the European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease
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