One of the best ways to prepare for an emergency is to put yourself in a simulation exercise to validate and test response procedures and plans and ultimately evaluate how it goes.
At the end of 2022, the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (MAPA) in Brazil, together with the Veterinary Service of the State of Santa Catarina (CIDASC), organized a African swine fever outbreak simulation exercise in Presidente Getulio, Brazil.
A crowd of more than 230 professionals participated in this theoretical-practical exercise with the main goal of exercising and evaluating the Veterinary Service’s capacity to respond to an ASF outbreak, following the guidelines of the National Contingency Plan for the disease, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) shares.
During the exercise, an Animal Health Emergency Operations Center was set up for the participants to carry out the procedures in the national contingency plan and in the State Contingency Plan for Terrestrial Animal Health Emergencies of the State of Santa Catarina, WOAH reports.
On day one, participants engaged in theoretical presentations on clinical and epidemiological aspects of ASF, the role of wild boars in ASF epidemiology, procedures for the management of suspected swine hemorrhagic diseases and risk communication in animal health emergencies.
They later divided into groups, rotated through six workshops on biosafety, sample collection and preparation, outbreak elimination, surveillance, transit, epidemiology and information and forms.
After this, they moved into the “practical part” of the simulation, WOAH explains. During this phase, participants put technical procedures such as clinical and epidemiological surveillance and investigation, biosecurity, collection and shipment of samples for laboratory diagnosis, elimination of outbreaks, cleaning and disinfection of facilities and control and inspection of vehicle traffic in the region tactics into practice. They also tested the use of software for data collection and processing and information management.
Read more about preparing for emergencies on WOAH’s website.
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