Simulation exercise: Foot and mouth disease in Spain-2

19 to 20 November 2012

Dr Lucio Ignacio Carbajo Goñi, Deputy Director General of Primary Production Sanitary Safety, Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA), Madrid, Spain, informs the OIE that a field simulation exercise on foot and mouth disease (FMD), is taking place in his country, from 19 to 20 November 2012.

This field simulation exercise, in which the Veterinary Services of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA) as well as those from the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha are participating, aims mainly at reviewing and verifying the National and Autonomous emergency plans, the control measures and the eradication of a FMD outbreak in Spain with a view to identifying improvements to be made in the plans, instructions, structures and procedures.

The specific objectives of this simulation exercise are the following:

  1. Evaluate the coordination between the MAGRAMA and the Autonomous Communities (CCAA) when facing a notification of an FMD outbreak in Spain;
  2. Evaluate the existence and/or the efficiency of the MAGRAMA and CCAA contingency plans for FMD;
  3.  Evaluate the veterinary services capacity of the CCAA to identify the farms susceptible to be affected by an FMD outbreak;
  4. Evaluate the veterinary services actions of the CCAA in case they need to send potentially FMD infected samples to a laboratory;
  5. Evaluate the response of the National reference laboratory in case of reception of the FMD samples.

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