Meeting of the Executive Committee of the European Commission for the Control of FMD (EuFMD) - 1961

18 REPORT

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EXECUTIVl:3

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The activities of the Commission -.since the Eighth Session in March, 1961 have been along similar lines as ·in: preceding years.

At the FAO Headquarters daily routine office work. has been carried out and much discussion has taken place wi.t h, colleagues in the FAO and with FAO veterinary experts.

In addition 9 : visits ·were made· to different countries and meetings were held or were attend�d.

Notes on Visits made since the Eighth Session In April t-he· .Secretary visited the. veterinary institute for virus research in Denmark to study together with the Director the experiments in which the Commission is taking an interest.

In the Italian/Danish experiments on the immunising value of kidney · tissue �ulture virus-vaccine 9 the first tests were carried out in An 1960-61 with a monovalent vaccine 9 and gave satisfactory results. experiment with trivalent vaccine is now in progress.

In the.Fre�ch/Danish experiments a quantitative study is be\ng mad\3 of the comparative immunising values of the vaccino-foot-and-mouth disease virus complex from cattle skin and.ordinary natural virus from cattle tongues.

For the immunisation of pigs a comparison was made.of the y4lue of the usual vaccine and vaccine in whose preparation a special adjuvant (oil) was used.

The latter vaccine gave the better result. Experiments on the vaccination of pigs will be continued.

Since the foot­ In April, also, the Secretary visited Turkey. and-mouth disease epizootic in 1957 the situation has been qui�t ih Turkey, but according to former experiences 9 a flare-up of the disease may be expected in the not too distant future.

The temporary foot­ and-mouth disease laboratory which was equipped by FAO after In 1960, recommendation of the Commission is now producing vaccine. some 100,000 monovalent doses .were produced and .it was hoped to produce some 500,000 doses in 1961.

The Turkish Government has now. allocated. money for a new large institute where it is hoped to produce several million doses of vaccine 9 annually.

Some money has been obtained. from U.S. Counterpart Funds to be used in experiments on the cultivation of foot-and-mouth disease virus in kidney tissue cu],.ture, The experiments are planned to last for The object about five years and to occupy six veterinarians full-time. is to have a large supply of virus in the future for vaccine production.

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. :j.i'olloyring _the visit. to Turkey., the Secretary visi t.ed Greece. The fbot-a:nd-moU:th iisease sit-µation in Greece had been very complicated­ since · .September·, ·1960.

The country was_ infected with all three types _ of virus; . with O virus_ probably from Turkey e1.1d with A and C virus probably by imported meat .from. South America,

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The foot-,.and-mouth disease laboratory in Athens which was equipped with the assist.ance of FAO after ·recommendation of . the Commission had been.in operation for about l½ years.

Virus for vaccine production was being produced in __ pig_ kidney tissue cultu.re. · This method worked well but the production was too smQll for the needs of Greece.

In June, the Secretary visited the Animal Virus Research Institute, Tubingen and the Foot-:-and-Mouth Disease Institute:, Cologne. in the Federal Republic of Germany, The Institute in Tubingen has been workiY).g for some yeaJ;'s on:the possibility of modifying foot-and-mouth disease virus in kidney tissue culture.

The visit was made to obtain information on the recent results, Thi� new method of modifying the virus seems promising for large scale production of a cheap vaccine.

It was, therefore, suggested that this problem should be one of the main items on the Agenda of the Commissi.on 1 s laboratory meeting in 1962 and that a representative of the Tubingen Institute should be invited to this m�.eting, This suggestion. was accepted, At the Institute in Cologne some information was given on the production of vaccine in the Federal Republic of Germany i.e. at the Institutes in Cologne and Marburg, The vaccine now being produced is· a concentrated trivalent vaccine prepared from natural virus. .. The 'full capacity for annual production.is some 20-million doses, Some work on vac_cination of cattle with kidney tissue culture virus-vaccines has been carried ou_t at the Institute in Cologne.

The findings have been very similar ·1;0 tho-se in th\') Italiai;i-Da�ish experiments in Denmark.

Wben on annu2.l lec:we in Denmark the Secretary worked for two weeks at the Danish Veterinary J;nstitute for Virus Research,.

Most of this time was spent 011 the cultivation of foot-and-mouth di�ease virus in pig tongue tissue.

In July, the Secretary visited the United Kingdom for discussions with the. Chai:rman and the Consultant of the Commission, He also visited the Virus-Research Institute at Pirbright and some other veterinary laboratories.

In October, a.visit was made to Israel by the Chairman ancl· Secretary of the Commission, on invitation by the Director of the Livestock Department in Israel, Dr. M. Sturman.

The purpose was to study foot-and-mouth disease problems in Israel and especially the