Ottawa-Significant progress has been made during the last 18 months in developing the Vaccination Implementation Support Structure (VISS) that will be a key part of the Integrated Emergency Response Plan (IERP) should foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) be found in the country, says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Agriculture Canada.

They and a core group of industry stakeholders led by Serecon Consulting have made significant progress in the development of the VISS protocols and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) necessary for the implementation of the vaccination policy and strategies, CFIA said.

It will be built to use as a foundation for other disease vaccination situations if needed. Livestock groups have been developing SOPs specific to their operational realities.

The development of the FMD response plan is being shaped by the significant amount of work already completed as part of the African swine fever response plan. That included clarifying, developing and defining roles and responsibilities for the federal and provincial governments and industry partners in the event of a foreign animal disease outbreak.

Additionally, CFIA is collecting and using baseline data provided by stakeholders from national commodity groups 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 (AHC) membership, CFIA said.

FMD is a severe, highly communicable, viral disease of cattle and swine, which also affects sheep, goats, deer and other cloven-hooved ruminants but not horses. Signs of the disease include fever and blister-like sores on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the hooves. While many affected animals recover, they are left weakened and debilitated from FMD.

All suspected cases of FMD must be reported to the CFIA. FMD has not been detected in Canada in several decades but is reported in countries outside North America.

The coordination of Canada's FMD planning, preparedness and readiness for response sits with AHC, which will build on the ASF planning and preparedness for disease prevention and control.

In March, AHC hosted the first FMD meeting with government and livestock industry groups to start discussing planning and preparedness.

At the annual meeting of the federal and provincial agriculture ministers in July, a commitment was made to create a FMD vaccine bank with $57.5 million committed over 5 years, with $5.6 million ongoing, to the CFIA to establish an FMD Vaccine Bank and develop FMD response plans.

The funding will provide and a dedicated vaccine source to support the CFIA and industry in the event of an outbreak. The bank will be another tool for Canada to support animal disease prevention and management and help stop the spread of disease. This investment complements Canada’s current access to vaccines through the North American FMD Disease Vaccine Bank (NAFMDVB).

The FMD Vaccine Bank will consist of concentrated FMD vaccines that can be rapidly transformed into usable vaccines in a timely and cost-effective manner.

This news item prepared for National Newswatch