EuFMD

In Libya, veterinarians in the field are carrying out good work to control the current FMD outbreak. In this new episode, Dr Dayhum and Dr Eldaghayes start from the history of the FMD in Libya to contextualize the actual FMD situation in Libya, and highlight experiences and strategies to control the disease.

Ibrahim Eldaghayes is a veterinarian and Professor of Virology at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tripoli, Libya. He is working with EuFMD, coordinating the work under Pillar II as a Technical Specialist. He holds a PhD in Virology and Immunology from the University of Bristol, UK, 2005. As a formal committee member of the Libyan National Center of Animal Health (NCAH) and now as a scientific advisor for NCAH, he is involved in many activities in order to control animal and zoonotic diseases in Libya. He has been nominated by the Libyan National Center for Diseases Control (NCDC) as Member of the Scientific Committee to control COVID-19 in Libya, and also appointed as COVID-19 Awareness and Education Committee Leader of the University of Tripoli. Ibrahim is also founder and Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed international journal “Open Veterinary Journal”.

Abdunaser Dayhum is a veterinarian and Professor of Epidemiology at the Department of Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tripoli, Libya. He is an epidemiologist, with experience in practice and development and cooperation projects. He is working with EuFMD in supporting the planning, development and implementation of the Pillar II Work Programme with technical assistance for FMD and other TADs risk reduction in European neighbouring countries. He was the director of National Center of Animal Health (NCAH) and also acted as CVO of the State of Libya and OIE delegate in 2012-2014. Abdunaser has a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Tripoli in 1990. he has completed his Master’s Degree in Epidemiology at the Veterinary College, Guelph University, Canada, in 1997, and has a PhD in Veterinary Epidemiology from the Ecole National Vétérinaire d’Alfort, France in 2008.

Welcome to a new episode of our podcast

Against the framework of the EuFMD’s focus on virtual learning and training, Nadia Rumich, EuFMD Communications Officer spoke with Dr Marcello Nardi and Dr Leah Seabrook about learning and how it is possible to measure the impacts of training programmes.

Marcello Nardi is Chief Learning Officer at EuFMD and leads the design of a Quality Management (QM) system, the processes by which courses and training programmes can be designed for higher impact and the internal Training Management System (TMS). He has a degree in Communication Studies at La Sapienza University and post-graduate degrees in Training Management at Il Sole 24 Ore Business School and Evaluation of Training Impact at Association for Talent Development (ATD). Over the past 12 years he worked in companies operating in the Healthcare industry, where he held various roles within the L&D function, before joining the EuFMD team last December.

Leah Seabrook is a veterinary training specialist with experience in designing technical disease training for public practice veterinarians both virtually and face to face. Leah works with the EuFMD in the development of the Training Management System which will support the development of veterinary capacity in countries the EuFMD supports.

Leah completed her veterinary degree at the Western college of Veterinary Medicine (Canada). After a short period in small animal practice, she joined the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) where she worked mostly in the areas of public health in meat inspection. Leah has developed technical training in support of CFIA's Foreign Animal Disease preparedness measures including hands on face-to-face training, classroom and virtual classroom events.

Welcome to a new episode of our podcast.



Dr Potzsch and Dr Plavsic speak about the collaboration between EuFMD and OIE in the framework of the implemented activities for improving surveillance and control of Foot-and-mouth and similar transboundary (FAST) animal diseases in the South-East European Neighbourhood, as the sharing of data and information under the Statement of Intentions (GF TADs).



Dr Plavsic is the OIE Regional Representative in Moscow. With his team, he is committed in improving on animal health and welfare, OIE standards setting, implementation of one-health principles and improvement of cooperation among Veterinary Services in Europe and beyond.



Dr Potzsch is a veterinary epidemiologists specialized in development, implementation and evaluation of livestock, wildlife and zoonotic disease surveillance and control schemes. He has been working with the EuFMD since 2004, with a focus on the Progressive Control Pathway for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (PCP-FMD), especially in the Southern Caucasus countries, Turkey and Central Asia and Central and West Africa.

Welcome to a new episode of our podcast.

Dr Nick Lyons spoke with Dr Kees Van Maanen about the implementation of small-scale immunogenicity studies for evidenced-based decisions on FMD vaccine selection.

Dr Lyons is a veterinary epidemiologist based in the UK, working with EuFMD with a keen interest in the evaluation of vaccines.

Dr Van Maanen is a virologist and senior researcher at Royal GD Animal Health in Deventer, the Netherlands, who started his career in FMD vaccine control.

They are often involved in providing advice to FMD endemic countries on FMD vaccines and strategies for vaccination.

Welcome to a new episode of our podcast.

Dr Bouda Vosough Ahmadi, EuFMD Risk Assessment Specialist, spoke with Dr Isabelle Dieuzy-Labaye, Senior Advisor on Partnerships at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), about Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

PPP is a mechanism to share resources and agree on responsibilities between the public and private sector to improve animal health and welfare. Application of PPP principles to control FMD and other similar transboundary animal diseases (FAST) is the focus of an e-learning course jointly developed by the EuFMD, the OIE and CIRAD.

Dr Dieuzy-Labaye has over 20 years of international experience in the animal health market with a focus in the private sector where she initiated and led multiple collaborations with various partners at the public-private interface. Dr Dieuzy-Labaye is a Board member at Ecole Nationale Vétérinaire d’Alfort (ENVA) in France, at the Moredun Research Institute in Scotland and she has been appointed a Trustee of GALVmed and Chair of the Commercial Development Committee. She holds a DVM from ENVA and an MBA from INSEAD.

Dr Bouda Vosough Ahmadi is a veterinarian and animal-health and welfare economist currently working at the EuFMD. His main research focus is on agricultural policies, economics, and policies of animal-health and animal welfare. He currently leads socioeconomic impact assessment studies of livestock diseases as well as public-private partnerships in the veterinary domain at EuFMD/FAO.

Nadia Rumich, EuFMD Communications Officer spoke with Dr Garner and Dr Bradhurst about EuFMDiS, a multi-country Foot-and-mouth disease outbreak simulation model. The EuFMDis model can be used to evaluate various control options to eradicate the disease. It is an adaptation of the Australian Animal Disease Spread Model (AADIS).

Dr Garner is a veterinary epidemiologist who has worked for EuFMD, following his retirement from the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources where he was a Senior Principal Research Scientist and Director of the Department’s Epidemiology and One Health Program.

Dr Bradhurst is a Research Fellow in the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analysis (CEBRA). His specialization is the fusion of multiple modelling approaches for the control of emergency animal, human, plant and environmental disease.

Our FMD Risk Assessment Specialist Dr. Bouda Ahmadi spoke with Dr Gareth Salmon at the FAO HQ in February. They discussed the new website called livestockdata.org that has been launched in May 2020 by The Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) Community of Practice. The website aligns with the LD4D’s objective to drive informed livestock decision-making through better use of existing data and analyses, and will be a source to access livestock evidence and data.

Dr Salmon works for Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI), which is based at the University of Edinburgh. Previously to that, he completed a PhD at Scotland’s Rural College and The University of Edinburgh. He modelled the productivity improvement potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from smallholder dairy production systems and considered the economic and social constraints to improvements.

Dr. Bouda Ahmadi is an FMD Risk Assessment Specialist and an Animal Health Socioeconomics expert. Bouda is working across the EuFMD Pillar II and Pillar III Work Programme.

Welcome to the podcast on rapid tests for FMD diagnosis. Dr Chevanne (EuFMD), had a talk with Dr Bakkali-Kassimi (ANSES) on rapid tests for the diagnosis of FMD and their contribution to virological surveillance. A rapid and easy-to-perform test is particularly useful for the confirmation of suspected FMD outbreaks on-site, and the fast implementation of control measures. The inactivation of positives tests on-site allows the safe transportation of samples from the field to the laboratory for virus characterization, without the need for maintaining the cold chain.

Dr Bakkali-Kassimi is a virologist at the Animal Health Laboratory of the National Agency for Food Safety, Environmental and Occupational Health (ANSES), Deputy director of UMR1161 Virology and Head of the Picornavirus biology team. He is the Director of the European Reference Laboratory for Foot and Mouth Disease and is also responsible for the international reference laboratory mandates for FAO and OIE.

Dr Etienne Chevanne is an FMD Risk Management Specialist and Animal Health expert. He works at the EuFMD in Rome.

Welcome to the podcast for the first issue of the Quarterly Report for 2020. This is also the first Joint report between EuFMD and the WRLFMD, replacing the former Global Monthly Report (GMR) which had been issued by the EuFMD for eight years.

Keith Sumption is the Executive Secretary of the EuFMD, and in this podcast he discusses the new Quarterly Report with Donald King, Head of the Vesicular Disease Reference Laboratory Group at the The Pirbright Institute and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) World Reference Laboratory for Foot-and-mouth disease (WRLFMD).

The Quarterly Report is available on the EuFMD website: https://www.eufmd.info/ and on the WRLFMD one: https://www.wrlfmd.org/ref-lab-reports

All colleagues reading this report are encouraged to assist to increase the submissions from these gap areas. We also welcome feedback on this new report format.

During the EuFMDiS advisory group Meeting held in Rome at the FAO HQ in January 2020, we met Dr. Gabriele Zancanaro from EFSA. We discussed EFSA’s pilot project “SIGMA” and the possible collaboration with our modelling project “EuFMDiS”.

Dr Zancanaro is a doctor in Veterinary Medicine. He was Head Veterinary Offices of Regione Piemonte: reference for the regional National Plan for Residues and for the Regional Observatory of Anatomo-Pathology (ORAP). He has worked for EFSA since 2008 in the Assessment and Methodological Unit and in the Animal Health and Welfare Team where is also project manager of the “SIGMA” Pilot project.