Regional Workshop On Preparedness And Response To Aquatic Animal Health Emergencies In Asia

The Regional Workshop on Preparedness and Response to Aquatic Animal Health Emergencies focused on emergency planning and responses to serious outbreaks of aquatic animal diseases in Asia. These proceedings include all papers presented, group reports and resulting recommendations. The material covers a wide range of topics, from a review of the history, current status and socio-economic impacts of transboundary aquatic animal diseases in Asia to analyses of regional needs in areas such as contingency planning, legislation and capacity building.

This document provides guidance to assist developing countries in improving national emergency preparedness in order to maximize the efficiency of response to serious outbreaks of aquatic animal diseases. This is a product of a joint FAO, Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) and WorldFish Center (WFC) Regional Workshop on Preparedness and Response to Aquatic Animal Health Emergencies, held in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 21 to 23 September 2004. The workshop, which was hosted by the Government of Indonesia, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), was attended by national policy-makers and scientists from the Asian Region, and international experts and resource persons from both the region and elsewhere. The complete proceedings of the workshop will be published in the FAO Fisheries Proceedings series.

This document provides guidance to assist developing countries in improving national emergency preparedness in order to maximize the efficiency of response to serious outbreaks of aquatic animal diseases. This is a product of a joint FAO, Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) and WorldFish Center (WFC) Regional Workshop on Preparedness and Response to Aquatic Animal Health Emergencies, held in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 21 to 23 September 2004. The workshop, which was hosted by the Government of Indonesia, Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), was attended by national policy-makers and scientists from the Asian Region, and international experts and resource persons from both the region and elsewhere. The complete proceedings of the workshop will be published in the FAO Fisheries Proceedings series.

The Regional Workshop on Preparedness and Response to Aquatic Animal Health Emergencies focused on emergency planning and responses to serious outbreaks of aquatic animal diseases in Asia. These proceedings include all papers presented, group reports and resulting recommendations. The material covers a wide range of topics, from a review of the history, current status and socio-economic impacts of transboundary aquatic animal diseases in Asia to analyses of regional needs in areas such as contingency planning, legislation and capacity building.

Technical guidelines on Asia regional health management for the responsible transboundary movement of live aquatic animals were developed and presented to the participating countries at a workshop held in Beijing, China, from 27 to 30 June 2000.

This publication provides background material and detailed technical procedures to assist countries and territories in Asia in implementing the Asia regional technical guidelines on health management for the responsible movement of live aquatic animals. The technical guidelines and their associated implementation plan, the Beijing consensus and implementation strategy (BCIS) (See FAO Fisheries Technical Paper no. 402), provide expert guidance for national and regional efforts to reduce the risks of disease due to transboundary movement of live aquatic animals.

Quarantine programmes form part of a first time of defence against possible adverse effects resulting from the transboundary movement of aquatic species. Although codes of practice for the international movement of aquatic animals have been developed by various international organisations, in many countries they have rarely been applied. Nevertheless, they provide a starting point for designing national and regional fish health regulations as well as international agreements aimed at preventing the spread of aquatic animal pathogens. To assist the countries of Asia in formulating technical guidelines on health certification and quarantine for the responsible transboundary movement of aquatic animals, FAO, in collaboration with the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA), the Aquatic Animal Health Research Institute of the Thai Department of Fisheries (AAHRI) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), conducted a workshop in January 1996 in Bangkok, Thailand to review the existing knowledge on aquatic animal quarantine and health certification in Asia and to develop an agreed-upon strategy for the formulation of technical guidelines. This document contains ten country papers presented at the workshop, some technical background information on general principles of aquatic animal quarantine, existing codes of practice, the agreed-upon strategy and the recommendations of the workshop. Contents Section I: Background to the Workshop Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Objectives of the Workshop; Chapter 3: Background; Chapter 4: Regional Approach; Chapter 5: Previous Regional Recommendations; Chapter 6: Socio-economic Importance of Diseases; Chapter 7: Way Forwards. Section II: The Workshop Chapter 1: Opening Ceremony; Chapter 2: Presentation of Country Reports; Chapter 3: Workshop Discussion; Chapter 4: Fundamental Principles for Regional Quarantine; Chapter 5: Proposed Regional Strategy; Chapter 6: Workshop Closing Remarks. Annexures Annex 1: Workshop Programme; Annex 2: List of Workshop Participants; Annex 3: Keynote Address; Annex 4: Welcome Address; Annex 5: Country Reports: Bangladesh, Cambodia, P R China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand; Annex 6: General Principles for Regional Quarantine; Annex 7: Regional Strategy; Annex 8: Quarantine Codes, Practices, Procedures and Guidelines; Annex 9: Bibliography of Selected Literature Relevant to Aquatic Animal Quarantine and Health Certification in Asia.

This report presents the results of a Round-table discussion: moving forward through lessons learned on response actions to aquatic animal disease emergencies organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) under the auspices of the project GCP/GLO/979/NOR: “Improving Biosecurity Governance and Legal Framework for Efficient and Sustainable Aquaculture Production” that was held from 16–18 December 2019 at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy. The meeting was attended by 43 experts from 22 countries, representing governance authorities, intergovernmental organizations, academia, research institutions and the private sector. Twenty presentations were delivered, namely: (1) National Competent Authority: role and experiences; (2) Inter-governmental organization: role and activities/experiences related to investigating specific mass mortalities of aquatic animals; (3) Producer and research/academic sectors: role and activities/experiences related to investigating specific mass mortalities of aquatic animalsand (4) Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBAD). The meeting successfully achieved its objective of taking stock and sharing experiences and lessons learned which were used for generating recommendations for the further development and improvement of the draft FAO Decision-tree for dealing with aquatic animal mortality events and supporting guidance. The meeting generated an annotated table of contents for this decision-tree document with the following major sections, namely: Introduction; Phases in an Emergency; Elements of an Emergency Response (Preparedness Phase, Response Phase, Recovery Phase); Decision-tree for Mass Mortality Events; Conducting Field Investigation; Tools and Guidance; and Case Study Examples. It is expected that this document will be made available in 2021.