Assessment of incursion risk. Improving surveillance and early detection of Foot-and-mouth And Similar Transboundary (FAST) animal diseases in the South-East European Neighbourhood (SEEN) countries. Virtual Workshop. 27-30 April 2020.

1. Assessment of the incursion risk of FMD
“the importance of risk information sharing”
Virtual workshop for Improving surveillance and early detection of FASTs in SEEN; April 27-30, 2020
Omid Nekouei (Veterinary Epidemiologist)
EuFMD. European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease
EuFMD Team

2. Background
● “To inform risk assessment”
● How can we link the valuable activities under
Pillars I & II in order to benefit both parties?
● Risk assessment is a practical tool for
evaluation of the risk imposed by traveling
infectious agents to a country/region via all
possible entry pathways
● e.g. Import RA
● Risk = Likelihood × Consequences
● Qualitative or quantitative
Entry

3. Objectives
● Regular monitoring and reporting of potential changes in the incursion
risk of FAST diseases
● Bridging pillars I & II
● Will be implemented in multiple phases
● Phase I (pilot):
○ To assess the likelihood of the introduction of FMDV from the
Northern African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) to Spain and
France using a risk assessment framework

4. All theoretical introduction
pathways for FAST
pathogens

5. Specific objectives & benefits (pilot)
1. To define the risk pathways contributing to the likelihood of introduction of FMDV
○ To inform surveillance activities for early detection
2. To identify existing sources of data/information and design a harmonized layout for data
collection (e.g., country cards)
3. To estimate the likelihood of the introduction via the pathways of importance using risk
assessment models (semi-quantitative!)
4. To compare the source countries with respect to their likelihood of introduction (e.g., using
country cards, SAT-scores, # of cases over time)
5. To predict changes in risk, based on changes in input variables
○ As an early-warning system; e.g., # new outbreaks in a source country
6. To identify information/knowledge gaps regarding the estimation of ‘prevalence’ in source
countries and the pathways of introduction
○ To direct targeted research and surveillance activities

6. General methodology
● Combination of probabilities to estimate ‘the likelihood of introduction’
○ Source country’s level of infection
○ Entry pathways to target country
● Excel platform
● Semi-quantitative?
● Data sources
● Limitations & assumptions
● Example: designing questionnaires to address each pathway’s probability
○ Probability of each pathway as score (very low-very high)
○ Level of uncertainty (low-high)

7. Progress
● Data collection & management (WAHIS, FAOSTAT, country-specific data)
● Preliminary country-level prevalence indices (to be refined)
○ This will help to compare source countries with each other
○ To monitor each country’s situation over time
○ To be combined with pathway probabilities
● Example for Spain: the most important pathways of entry
○ Returning vehicles from source countries, after delivering animals and machineries,
etc.
○ Illegal introduction of food of animal origin by passengers (air, land, sea)
○ Other pathways are considered ’negligible’

8. Future directions
1. Other source countries (starting with the EuFMD neighbours)
2. Other target countries (starting with EuFMD members)
3. Other FAST diseases (e.g., PPR)
4. Expand the basic model/s to include exposure and consequence assessments
5. To develop a flexible, user-friendly, sustainable platform to include ~real-time data
6. Provide further guidance and regular reporting on the most significant risks, so that we can
identify support mitigation measures

9. Acknowledgments
EuFMD Team
● Special thanks to my colleagues:
○ Fabrizio Rosso
○ Maria DeLa Puente Arevalo
○ Melissa Mclaws
○ Mattia Begovoeva
○ Etienne Chevanne
○ Paolo Motta

10. www.fao.eufmd.org
Thank you!