Background
WOAH (founded as OIE) has been involved from the start in the formation of the International Cooperation on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Veterinary Medicinal Products (VICH) and has been represented by its Collaborating Centre ANSES in all its Steering Committee Meetings.
As indicated in its 5th Strategic Plan, WOAH encourages the use of VICH Guidelines by its Member Countries and in order to facilitate this, engaged with VICH to support the process of setting up the VICH Forum in which non-VICH members countries and regions can participate and learn first-hand about the VICH process. The VICH Forum aims to provide a basis for wider international harmonisation of technical registration requirements necessary for the marketing authorisation (also called “registration”) of a veterinary medicinal product.
The VICH Forum was created during the 26th VICH Steering Committee meeting, held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2011. A number of countries and regional organisations which meet the criteria laid down in the Terms of Reference for this Forum, have since then met for the inaugural Forum, held in Brussels in June 2012 and subsequent Forum meetings, which take place at the time of VICH Steering Committee meetings.
The key issues of interest to the non-VICH countries coming together in the Forum are to better understand and actively contribute to the VICH Guideline development process, to suggest topics for new Guidelines, to provide feedback on the acceptance of existing guidelines and to discuss practical issues related to VICH guidelines, to receive training in the application of the Guidelines and to collaborate and share translations of guidelines into other languages.
Current members of the Forum
Countries
Argentina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, People’s Republic of China, Egypt, India, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Taipei, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, The Philippines, United Arab Emirates,
Uganda, Ukraine, Zambia, Zimbabwe (Observer: South Africa)
Regional organizations
ASEAN (representing Asia)
CAMEVET (representing the Americas)
EAC (representing East African Community)
SADC (representing South African Development Community)
WAEMO/UEMOA (representing West Africa)
The role of WOAH
WOAH and its Collaborating Centre ANSES facilitate the relation and communication between Forum members, the VICH Secretariat and the VICH members. Minutes of the Forum meetings and other documents of relevance for Forum member countries and WOAH Member Countries interested in joining the Forum can be found on this webpage.
- Concept Paper GL
- VICH and its role in the authorization of VMP (eng – arab)
Meetings of the VICH Forum
- Inaugural Forum meeting, Tokyo (Japan), 15 – 16 November 2011 (minutes)
- 1st Forum meeting, Brussells (Belgium), 26 – 27 June 2012 (minutes)
- 2nd Forum meeting, Washington DC (USA), 19 – 20 February 2013 (minutes – press release)
- 3rd Forum meeting, Auckland (New Zealand), 12 – 13 November 2013 (minutes – press release)
- 4th Forum meeting, Brussels (Belgium), 24 – 25 June 2014 (minutes – press release)
- 5th Forum meeting, Washington DC (USA), 24 – 25 February 2015 (minutes – press release)
- 6th Forum meeting, Tokyo (Japan), October 2015 (minutes – press release)
- 7th Forum meeting, Brussels (Belgium), 21-22 June 2016 (minutes – press release)
- 8th Forum meeting, Buenos Aires (Argentina), 27 February – 2 March 2017 (minutes – press release)
- 9th Forum meeting, Tokyo (Japan), 14 – 15 November 2017 (minutes – press release)
- 10th Forum meeting, Bruges (Belgium), 26 – 27 June 2018 (minutes – press release)
- 11th Forum meeting, Cape Town (South Africa), 25 – 26 February 2019 (minutes – press release)
- 12th VICH Forum meeting, Tokyo (Japan), 19 – 20 November 2019 (minutes – press release)
- 13th VICH Forum meeting, Virtual, 17 November 2020 (minutes – press release)
- 14th VICH Forum meeting, Virtual, 16 November 2021 (minutes – press release)
- 15th VICH Forum meeting, USA, 15 November 2022 (minutes – press release)
- 16th VICH meetings, Tokyo, Japan, 13-16 November 2023 (minutes – press release)
12th Forum Meeting – 38th Steering Committee
Tokyo (Japan), November 2019
Next meeting of the VICH Forum
- 43rd VICH Steering Committee meeting, together with the 17th VF meeting, and 7th VICH public conference will be held in Amsterdam ( European Medicines Agency ) The Netherlands, from 10 to 15 November 2024. The public conference is open to all interested parties and will take place on Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 .
Service to Forum members
A need has been identified by Forum members for VICH Guidelines to be translated into other languages. WOAH, in collaboration with other organisations, makes those Guidelines which are already translated, available on this website. It needs, however, to be noted that only the English version as found on the VICH website is considered original and binding.
These Guidelines can be found as pdf files hereunder.
Russian (translated byWOAH)
Spanish (translated by FDA see U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
French (translated by Health Canada, Veterinary Drugs Directorate, in 2004 and as otherwise indicated)