Simulation exercise: Foot-and-mouth disease culling and disposal exercise in New Zealand

Dr Tony Zohrab, Chief Market Access Officer, Policy and Trade Branch, Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) of New Zealand, informed the OIE that a field simulation exercise on a large scale livestock culling event, named “Exercise Akuaku” will take place on 19 October 2016 in the Waikato region of New Zealand.

The exercise is designed to test MPI’s destruction, disposal and disinfection (3D) operational plans for a large scale livestock culling event. This field exercise will involve the management of the Incident Control Point, the planning of destruction, disposal and disinfection, and the actual physical establishment of the gate control disinfection station. The exercise will also test the cleaning and disinfection process for a biosecure truck.

No animals will be destroyed or disposed of as part of this exercise.The objectives of the exercise are to:

1. Test the on-farm response roles, including the Incident Controller role, the planners and operations teams.
2. Identify any inconsistencies or gaps in the operational plans.
3. Test the procedures for establishing and running a Gate Control Unit
4. Test the processes and templates for developing a Place Disinfection Plan
5. Test the disinfection of a carcass transport truck upon leaving the farm, including measuring the water requirements.
6. Test processes and templates for developing destruction plan for a farm.
7. Test the GIS web service and the decision checklist app in the field situation.
8. Test the disposal planning process.

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World Animal Health Information and Analysis Department
World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)
[email protected]