FMD Project update: Developing the Vaccination Implementation Support Structure and Integrated Emergency Response Plan for Foot-and-Mouth Disease

For 18 months a core group of industry stakeholders, Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, led by Serecon Consulting, have made significant progress in the development of the Vaccination Implementation Support Structure (VISS), which will form a complete chapter in the Integrated Emergency Response Plan (IERP) for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD). The VISS will contain protocols and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) necessary for the implementation of CFIA’s vaccination policy and strategies. It will be built to be leveraged as a foundation for use in other disease vaccination situations, if necessary. The livestock commodities have each been developing SOPs specific to their operational realities.

Running concurrently to the VISS project, is the development of the Foot-and-Mouth Disease IERP. The IERP is leveraging the significant amount of work already completed as part of the African swine fever IERP. This work will focus on clarifying, developing and defining roles and responsibilities for Federal, Provincial and Territorial Governments and Industry Partners (FPTI) in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak.

Also, CFIA is collecting and using baseline data provided by stakeholders from national commodities in the FMD Vaccine Strategy working group for disease modelling. With farm locations and animal movement information, models can predict foreign animal disease spread over time.

In the coming months, as working groups are struck to focus on things like biosecurity, depopulation and disposal, FMD work will expand to require broader subject matter expertise and inclusion of commodities beyond the Animal Health Canada membership.

Visit the Emergency Management's Foot-and-Mouth Disease to read the latest updates.