4th Annual Meeting
The 4th Annual Meeting EPIZONE titled ”Bridges to the Future”, was held in Saint-Malo, France, from 7-10 June 2010. This meeting was hosted by AFSSA (Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Aliments), one of the 17 partner institutes of EPIZONE. About 340 participants from 27 countries attended; scientists from many different fields of research and from inside and outside EPIZONE, sponsors, and policy makers. Also 11 other (EU) projects presented themselves.
243 Abstracts were submitted, and during the meeting 36 oral presentations and around 200 posters were setup. Besides this 5 Keynote speakers were invited and special item this year was the interactive session on ‘’Major Epidemic Threats” prepared by EPIZONE Theme 7 participants, working on Risk Assessment.
8 June
The first day of the meeting Professor Wim van der Poel, CVI, The Netherlands, welcomed everybody and presented this years slogan ‘EPIZONE Building bridges to the future”.
Wim handed over to the first keynote speaker Dr Rob Raynard, from University of Aberdeen; Scottish Fish Immunology Research Centre, with the presentation titled: ‘Infectious Salmon Anaemia: emergence, control and surveillance in Aquaculture’. “The disease was first reported from Norway in 1984, where it is still widespread. Subsequently it occurred in Canada, the USA, the Faeroe Islands and Chile. An outbreak occurred in Scotland in 1998/9 and this was eradicated at a cost then over £20M.” read more
The keynote lecture was followed by oral presentations of EPIZONE Theme 4 Diagnostics, see abstract book.
The afternoon session with EPIZONE Theme 5 Intervention Strategies, oral presentations was opened by keynote speaker Dr Ken Mc Cullough, from Institute of Virology and Immunoprophylaxis (IVI), with the lecture: Viruses, Vaccines and Dendritic Cells: a question of Life, the Universe and Everything?
“Dendritic cells (DC) play a critical role in immune defence development by mediating the interaction of various components within the innate and adaptive immune compartments. During the last decade, the increase in our knowledge on the critical role of DC has elaborated our understanding of how viruses evade and modulate immune defence processes, as well as promoted research and development of vaccines for targeting DC.” read more
The social dinner took place in La Demeure de Corsaire, a historic monument built in 1725, the home of François-Auguste Magon de la Lande, privateer and merchant. François-Auguste Magon was one of the most powerful ship-owners in the heyday of Saint-Malo and a director of the French East India Company. We were welcomed by a brass band and after 10 in the evening there was a great disco dance in the cellar.
9 June
The second day of the meeting was focused on the special topic of this year “Major Epidemic Threats” and started with the keynote speaker Dr Hana Weingartl, from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Susceptibility of pigs to Zaire Ebola virus and their potential as an intermediate host species.
“Ebola viruses are one of the examples of re-emerging pathogens in humans and nonhuman primates. Swine was not suspected to be a potential host for these viruses, until detection of Reston ebolavirus in pigs in the Philippines. Subsequently, specific antibodies were found in pig farmers indicating exposure to the virus. This important observation raised the possibility that pigs may be an amplifying species and trans Ebola virus also to humans” read more
In the afternoon session two keynote speakers presented their work: Professor Ian Brown from Veterinary Laboratories Agency with: Threats to animal health from influenza, an EU perspective, and
Professor Chris Olsen from University of Wisconsin-Madison; School of Veterinary Medicine with: Swine influenza in North America: virus evolution, control and public health implications.
Ian Brown: “During the last ten years there have been multiple threats to animal health in the EU from influenza. Primarily this has involved outbreaks in domestic poultry with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) of various subtypes. The cost to the industry and the community can be estimated in billions of Euros. Other influenza viruses present significant disease threat to other hosts such as the recent pandemic (H1N1) 2009 virus whereby spread to animal populations provides additional challenges to the veterinary community and industry alike.” read more.
Chris Olsen:” Pigs has suffered the effects of influenza virus infection since at least the 1930s. For six decades, the primary cause of influenza in North American pigs was viruses of the classical swine influenza H1N1 lineage. However , in the late 1990s, a wide variety of novel reassortant viruses of multiple subtypes emerged within the North American swine population, with differing implications for both swine and human health” read more.
Interactive session
Besides the keynote lectures there was an interactive session on “Major epidemic threats” with moderator Professor Dirk Pfeiffer from Royal Veterinary College in London, UK.
First session was titled: “Threats and changes” .What is your opinion on the current most threatening viruses and the effects of changes e.g. in climate and the environment?
Second session: ”preparedness: prevention, detection and control”. What is your opinion on the current state of preparedness for the most threatening viruses: can their introduction be prevented, is early detection possible, and are tools available to control epidemic spread?
A summary report based on the first results of the session will be available on the EPIZONE website in October 2010. Later, a final report will be published with more detailed analysis of the results of the interactive session.
Poster sessions and project presentations
All days, after the morning and afternoon presentations, there was plenty of time for discussing the posters, networking and to participate in the invited (EU) project presentations.
7 June and 10 June
Monday 7 June, many work packages were held and the EPIZONE Internal Call BT-DYNVECT presented their findings of the one year project in a satellite Symposium: Establishing the transmission dynamics of Bluetongue serotype 8 and entomological aspects in Northern Europe, see programmes.
Young EPIZONE had a full day programme with three workshops: networking, job interviews and CV writing. After a poster walk, the young EPIZONE members had to select posters for the EPIZONE and Merial poster prizes.
A GFRA Workshop was held on Thursday 10 June, with an introduction of the project and examples of GFRA activities. The workshop ended with roundtable discussions, see programmes.
The abstract book of the 4th Annual Meeting is available here