The US and Mexico are organizing simultaneously their national simulation exercices

The United States of Americas are organising SFEAR - Swine Fever Exercise for Agriculture Response

USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Veterinary Services (APHI-VS) National Training and Exercise Program (NTEP) is sponsoring the last exercise of a series of 4 started in Nov 2018 for the 14 top swine producing states to further investigate their capacity to effectively respond to and mitigate an outbreak of African Swine Fever (ASF). The simulation will last 4 days and will deal with key aspects of ASF response and mitigation: laboratory network, outbreak investigation, animal movement control, planning and ressources coordination, depopulation, and disposal of carcasses, continuity of business ..

Each state will participate from their departmental operations centers, or equivalent; they will initiate the appropriate scale of the Incident Command System (ICS), as designated in their response plans, and they will deploy field personnel as needed. Several observers from various countries (Canada, USDA-APHIS-IS, Australia and the Caribbean) are invited.

More information: OIE information

Mexico is organizing at the same time a simulation exercise "Megasimulaccro PPA"

Mexico has received earlier an invitation to participate in a regional table top simulation exercice that is organized in the US with the main swine producers states. The main objective is to test the alert capacity and the organisation during an early response when facing the presence of exotic Animal diseases, such as ASF. "Megasimulacro PPA" will simulate simultaneous outbreaks of the diseases in eight federative entities in Mexico. The exercice will be coordinated and directed by SENASICA from the Min or Agriculture and Rural Development of Mexico and will include Mexican participants as well as international observers
More information: OIE information

The Caribbean through CaribVET has been invited to participate in the SFEAR, as an observer

CaribVET was invited to participate to some segments of the exercise so that we can view the exercice from a designated observation area. CaribVET participants are: Victor Gongora (Belize, Chair of the Epigroup), Bryan Sanford (Barbados, chair of the GIS Subgroup), Wendy Gonzalez (Dominican Republic, Chair Swine Diseases WG), Gillian Ellis (Jamaica, member of the Epi and Swine Diseases WG), Chris Oura (ASF Expert, UWI, Trinidad and Tobago, Coordination Unit), Jennifer Pradel (CIRAD Guadeloupe, CaribVET Secretary) and Paula Morales and Mario Ambrosino (USDA-APHIS, Coordination Unit).

The participants have received already the Exercice plan and will connect through BlueJeans platform. They will prepare a report that will be used to prepare the Caribbean ASF Preparedness regional workshop that will be funded by USDA and which will be organized later in 2019. 

CENTRAL AMERICA - 10th Meeting of the GF-TADs Steering Committee (Panama City, 17 Sept)

The Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs) is a joint FAO and OIE initiative to achieve the prevention, detection and control of transboundary animal diseases, combining the strenghts of both international organizations to achieve commone objectives. The main objectives of the meeting will be:

• Update the Terms of Reference and composition of the Regional SteeringCommittee of the GF TADs for the Americas.
• Provide a general overview of the main risks on the introduction of ASF in the region, as well as the emergency preparedness capacities in the Americas
• Establish a regional Standing Group of Experts on ASF for the Americas.
• Reactivation of the Continental Plan on Classical Swine Fever (CSF)
• Define future joint strategies addressing ASF.

Dr. Mark Trotman (Senior Veterinary Officer of Barbados) is the president of the GF-TAS Americas.  CaribVET will be represented by its President - Dr. Yobani Gutierrez Ravelo, Chief Veterinary Officer of Cuba. Other CVOs from the Caribbean will participate. Major outputs of the meeting will be shared with CaribVET and used to prepare the CaribVET ASF Preparedness regional workshop to ensure best linkages and communication with the rest of the hemisphere.