OIE: Animal disease control programmes and official disease status

The status of Member Countries with respect to priority diseases was examined with a view to granting official recognition. OIE Member Countries can apply to be included in the list of countries with an officially recognised status with regard to the following six priority diseases: bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), foot and mouth disease (FMD), contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), African horse sickness, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) and, since May 2014, classical swine fever (CSF).

At this General Session, a number of new countries or zones of countries obtained official recognition of their status:

• For the first time, 23 countries were recognised as “free from CSF” in Europe, the Americas, Asia and a zone in Brazil;
• 4 new countries were recognised as “free from peste des petits ruminants”, as well as a zone in Namibia;
• Morocco was recognised as “free from African horse sickness”;
• 6 countries of Europe were recognised as having a “negligible BSE risk”;
• France was recognised as “free from CBPP”;
• The Philippines was recognised as “FMD free where vaccination is not practised”. New zones were officially recognised as free from the disease, either with or without vaccination, in Ecuador, Kazakhstan and Botswana;

In the case of FMD, South America has now almost completely achieved the eradication of the disease, and, for the first time, a country of Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, has achieved an officially recognised FMD status for a part of its territory.