Under its 'Better Training for Safer Food' initiative the European Commission is organising laboratory workshops and training missions for third countries to improve control of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) and other animal diseases including Classical and African Swine Fevers (CSF/ASF), Rabies and Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR).

The European Union (EU) integrated approach to food safety aims to ensure a high level of animal health and welfare. It is imperative that outbreaks of contagious diseases affecting humans and animals are prevented and controlled as early and efficiently as possible. It is also essential that effective mechanisms need to be established to ensure that food produced is safe for consumers.

The potential for further harm to animal and human health as well as damage to national economies through the spread of animal diseases necessitates the implementation and dissemination of effective and preventative measures. The project is designed to provide assistance and implement training activities to ensure that officials involved in animal disease control in third countries and countries trading with the EU are properly informed and trained to develop efficient strategies for animal disease control and in particular HPAI, CSF, ASF, Rabies and PPR.

The 18 countries involved in this project are Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Russia, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Mongolia, Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.

The project, implemented on behalf of the European Commission by DEVELOPMENT Solutions, will consist of two main training exercises:

• Six 3-day laboratory workshops to be conducted in Europe for third country officials
• 20+ sustained training missions to third country beneficiaries on outbreak management

The laboratory workshops are intended to provide training in state-of-the-art virological and serological methods of diagnosis and other suitable techniques so that participants are in a position to fully apply the techniques in their home countries.

The sustained training missions on outbreak management will provide the competent authorities in beneficiary countries with tools to develop national and regional measures for the management of HPAI, CSF/ASF, rabies and PPR.

The training programme will take place in close collaboration with the competent country authorities and experts of FAO, OIE, World Bank and WHO.

This websites offers project status updates, an overview of workshop presentations, animal health news, relevant web links, and a background on the European Commission's efforts to improve training for safer food. If you have a question or would like to start a discussion, please visit our discussion board to communicate with other interested visitors or contact us directly