A Network of Veterinary Public Health and Zoonotic Diseases in Asia
International workshop on Veterinary Public Health (2005)-Israel
2005 Keystone Symposia on
Infectious Diseases
TSE in Animal Populations – Fact and Fiction
An International Conference
Location: Fort Collins, CO, USA
Date: September 10-11, 2003
Sponsors: OIE, USDA, Agriculture Canada, and TAFS
Several
scientific meetings and presentations were conducted during the last decade for
the purpose of sharing findings and discussing approaches to understand and
reduce the spread of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) diseases in
animals, specifically Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), scrapie and
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).
The mainstream
media and other communication routes have also attempted to interpret research
findings and social concerns. The public, however, has been provided with
information and options that are a mixture of the truth and speculation. There
is little exchange of information among all the involved parties. Due to the
geographical diversity in the occurrence of some of these diseases, sharing
information from particular regions related specifically to TSE diseases is
limited. The BSE situation in Europe has expanded the knowledge of European
scientists and regulators. In the same way, the presence of CWD in North
America has given several opportunities to local scientists and regulators to
understand and deal with this disease. Thus, there is a need to enhance the
communication with these parties for a better understanding of the main issues.
Purpose:
The purpose of
this conference is to establish a line of communication between scientists,
policy makers, regulators, and the public on topics related to TSEs in animal
populations in order to improve future potential preventive measures. Updates
on recent research, regulations, and other findings will be part of the
conference. The scrapie in sheep will be used as a base line disease for
contrast and comparison. The potential zoonotic aspects will be included in
these topics. This would require an understanding of current scientific
findings and their implication in preventive measures as well as an
understanding of the future impact of these diseases on the food chain
supplies. Thus, scientists, policy makers, veterinary and public health
regulators, wild life biologists, the general public, livestock producers, the
food industry, and food suppliers should be part of this dialogue and
communication.
Format:
The conference
will be announced using specific list servers and it will have its own
webpage.
The conference
will be a combination of scientific and professional presentations in a panel
format in which a previously prepared set of questions will be addressed.
Written questions will also be solicited from the audience for use during the
panel discussion. Participants will
be from both the resource personnel and the user contingent. The resource group
will consist of researchers in TSEs (both basic and applied research),
regulators who have implemented and used rules applied to these diseases, and
specialized diagnosticians of these diseases. The majority of the BSE
specialists will be from Europe and the majority of the CWD specialists will be
from North America. Scrapie is the
baseline for the presentations and discussions to address similarities and
differences among the three diseases.
These
participants will contribute by assessing options and suggesting methods for
future prevention of the spread of these diseases. The second category of
participants is the user group who will discuss and suggest options for
improving communication as related to the prevention strategies for these
diseases. This group will be representatives of animal producers, wildlife
specialists, hunters, consumers, food-chain suppliers, food retailers,
regulators, and inspectors.
The two day
conference will be divided into panels (maximum four panels) to answer the
specific questions listed below. Major emphasis will be on BSE and CWD. However
scrapie will be used as a baseline for comparison and contrasts.
Panel topics:
· Pathogenesis
· Diagnosis and epidemiology
· Prevention and regulations
· Research and future directions
Each panel will
address the facts and myths of a specific topic for each of the two
diseases.
The length of
each panel will be no more than four hours, including one hour for open
discussion with the presenters. Speakers will be selected to give an overview
of the topic in lay terms. It is important to be able to synthesize scientific
facts and consequential issues concerning risks and controls that affect the
producers, food industry, hunters, and consumers.
The conference
output will be shared with the scientific community, the media, food industry
groups, diagnostic assays companies, hunter groups, and livestock
producers. This may be presented in
different formats according to the interest of the specific groups. It is possible that the presentations and
responses to questions will be considered for publication in a special issue of
a scientific journal.
Registration and
accommodations:
The conference
will be held at the University Park Holiday Inn Hotel in Fort Collins,
Colorado, USA. Registration details are
pending. To receive notification as information becomes available; please
contact Pam Timms at APHI@colostate.edu
______________________________________________________________________________________________
LISBON CALLING:
July 1-4, 2003
Conference
Announcement
Save the date:
July 1-4, 2003
International Conference Poverty, Food and Health in
Welfare: current issues, future perspectives, which will be held July 1-4, 2003
at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon, Portugal.
Early
registration: Before February 28, 2003
Dear Colleagues,
Please check back the website regularly (http://www.pfh2003.org/) for updates and new
information about the conference PFH2003.
We look forward to your active participation in this
important initiative. Mark your calendar now and plan to join us in Lisbon.
Feel free to share this email with colleagues who you think may be interested
in the Conference.
On behalf of the PFH2003 Conference Organising
Committee,
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