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Global Swine Influenza Surveillance Network is Launched

Last week a group of the world's leading swine influenza experts met at the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in Paris to set a course for coordinating world-wide influenza surveillance in pigs.

This initiative has been launched by OFFLU - the OIE/FAO network of expertise on animal influenza - and responds to calls from the scientific community for an international platform to collect, share, and analyse data about influenza viruses circulating in pig populations world-wide.

Global level surveillance data is needed to improve pig health and productivity, and ultimately to reduce the potential risk of human influenza epidemics or pandemics.

The OFFLU swine influenza network - which is made up of key technical experts from both the public health and animal health sectors, including from the Americas, the Asia/Pacific region and Europe - will be sharing and interpreting surveillance data from targeted regions to provide a global picture and to detect emerging health threats. The experts will look at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of existing programmes through targeted surveillance and by developing new and harmonised approaches.

This first meeting noted that there are considerable but surmountable barriers to sustain influenza surveillance in pigs. In particular it is critical that resources are maintained to fund sample collection and analyses with the support of Veterinary Services, and that pig owners are willing to fully cooperate.

Effective communication is critical so that pig owners see the benefits that participation in surveillance will provide in terms of improving herd health and productivity. The general public and policy makers must also understand the science, that influenza infections in pigs are typically not a public health risk, are not a food safety risk, and should not result in trade or economic sanctions. OFFLU will have an important role to play in advocacy.

The meeting considered that with current technology and expertise there has never been a better time to answer key questions about the role that animals play in the emergence of pandemic viruses, and the network is committed to making these scientific advances with the support of OIE, FAO, and WHO.

Dr Amy Vincent from the USDA Agricultural Research Service said, 'Past surveillance and the recent H1N1 pandemic has demonstrated that influenza viruses spread with some frequency between birds, humans, pigs, and other animals. Human pandemics may occur when different influenza viruses exchange their genes. However no one, not even the experts, can predict exactly why, how, when, or where this will happen.'

Professor Kristien Van Reeth from the University of Ghent in Belgium added, 'The next critical step is to develop a better understanding of influenza dynamics so that we can answer these questions. This can only be achieved through a globally concerted effort to undertake well planned surveillance in pigs, birds, humans, as well as other susceptible animals, and to combine this with the appropriate research.'

The swine influenza surveillance network will meet annually and during the coming year will work to deliver several technical projects to improve global influenza surveillance in pigs - details of these will soon become available on the OFFLU website. See http://www.offlu.net Source: OIE