Canada’s livestock and poultry sectors have created the Foreign Animal Disease Executive Management Board (FAD-EMB) to address foot and mouth disease (FMD), African swine fever (ASF), and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI.
It establishes a collaborative process for disease prevention, preparedness and response with federal, provincial, territorial and industry collaborative engagement. It is built on success the partners have had in forming a response to the threat of African Swine Fever.
The first meeting of the FAD-EMB was held in-person on June 24 when they identified the need for disease-specific work to continue through leadership groups, and there was agreement that the four-pillar model followed for African swine fever is applicable for other foreign animal diseases.
Themes that emerged throughout the day highlighted the importance of relationship building to support this collaborative approach. It was agreed that the FAD-EMB will not be a platform for lobbying efforts but is an unbiased forum for driving disease prevention, planning and response needs. The group recognized the potential for fatigue and the importance of regularly celebrating progress.
Next steps include drafting a charter and populating disease-specific leadership groups to maintain momentum on ASF, FMD and HPAI priority gaps. There was also acknowledgement of horizontal priorities that apply to all species.
The FAD-EMB will plan to meet quarterly to collaboratively drive foreign animal disease prevention, preparedness and response.
The coalition also announced the launch of a nation-wide diseases alert system.
The dashboardThe Canadian Animal Health Surveillance System (CAHSS) launched a new disease alerts dashboard, which allows users to visualize disease alerts across Canada. Alerts can be filtered by disease type, animal type, region, time period, and more.
Disease alerts can be submitted by government officials, industry organizations, and private veterinarians using a form. All disease alert submissions are validated by CAHSS staff before posting.
allows users to visualize disease alerts across Canada. Alerts can be filtered by disease type, animal type, region, time period, and more.
Disease alerts can be submitted by government officials, industry organizations, and private veterinarians using a form. All disease alert submissions are validated by CAHSS staff before posting.
