Introduction
Scoping work was carried out to gather information on the state of preparedness for emergency vaccination for FAST diseases in EuFMD Member Nations (MN); and on the issues that constrain them from inclusion of vaccination in their plans. Different aspects of emergency vaccination were investigated including vaccination strategies, access to vaccines and operational preparedness. The scope of the work was category 1 FAST diseases which is Foot- and- Mouth Disease (FMD), Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD), Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) and Sheep and Goat Pox (SGP).
Materials and methods
An online questionnaire was sent out to 39 EuFMD member nations plus three additional European countries. The online tool SurveyMonkey® was used and the data was analysed using R. The questionnaire was aimed at risk managers/ contingency planners.
Results
The response rate was 15 out of 42 countries. Some examples of preliminary key findings were that the level of planning for emergency vaccination is higher for FMD than PPR and SGP, many of the responding countries rely on the EU bank with no other arrangements to source vaccines, not all countries have a system to perform a rapid evaluation and approval of vaccines for emergency use, a relative high number of member nations would choose a vaccinate-to-cull strategy over a vaccinate-to-live strategy for FMD and over 50% of countries have an exit plan for FMD but only one country has stated they have an exit plan for PPR or SGP.
Discussion
The questionnaire result will be followed up by semi-structured group interviews with EuFMD MNs risk managers/ contingency planners to validate the results and to capture more detailed information on the gaps and needs in MNs.
B Sanz-Bernardo1 & M Grant2
1 The Pirbright Institute
2The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (EuFMD)
