Theme 7 “Risk Assessment”

Theme leaders: Dr Louise Kelly, Veterinary Laboratories Agency, United Kingdom
                        Dr Franz Conraths, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institute, Germany

Assessing the risk of introduction of an epizootic disease in Europe, and its potential consequences, should be an integral part of any surveillance programme.

Despite the availability of the OIE guidelines, there remain differences in the approaches used by organisations, and different countries within Europe, when undertaking risk assessments. In addition, criteria for determining whether or not data are appropriate for risk assessments do not exist.

• EPIZONE focuses on advancing the discipline of risk assessment through the standardisation of methods and the collection of appropriate data.
• The EPIZONE network aims to promote common approaches as well as encouraging collaboration between scientists from all disciplines to generate useful risk assessment data. As part of this, experts will be consulted to identify and prioritise potential disease threats to Europe as a result of changing environments.
• A system to aid in assessing the risk of a particular infection (classical swine fever) being present in a herd will be built. The system will rely on the collection of data from experts and from paper records during outbreaks and will serve as a standard method for other diseases.
• EPIZONE concentrates on standardising the data that are collected for use in risk assessments through the provision of online databases. Such databases will allow for early identification of hazards within Europe as well as providing rapid access to appropriate data for assessing risk.