26th Conference of the OIE Regional Commission for Asia

257. Dr Vallat advised that the current mandate of the OIE was to deal with official recognition of
country or zone status for four animal diseases: foot-and-mouth disease, bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, rinderpest and contagious bovine pleuropneumonia. He further advised that
earlier in this Regional Conference it was stated that the OIE would be considering providing
official recognition for African horse sickness and glanders. He commented that recognition of
compartments was not feasible due to the likelihood of large numbers of applications, from
many of the 175 OIE Members, needing to be assessed and the significant workload that would
result, for which huge additional resources would be necessary. Therefore, the current OIE
approach for compartmentalization was provided in the current international standards which
obliged a Member to consider requests of proposals to evaluate compartments made by
exporting Members within the context of trade negotiations.
258. Dr Vallat made reference to two questions received from the Delegate of Pakistan. The first
point referred to avian influenza surveillance. He clarified that the OIE recommends that
Veterinary Services need to have the necessary resources to perform surveillance also in
backyard poultry as well as in industrial poultry farms. In case of test positive results
stamping out is recommended. The second point referred to the inclusion of control of zoonoses
into veterinary education. He stated that the OIE considers zoonoses as an important part of
veterinary education. The OIE addressed the issue of veterinary curriculum through the
recent OIE Global Conference on Veterinary Education held in October in Paris; Dr Vallat
encouraged all OIE Members to take into account the recommendations of this conference,
which are placed on the OIE Web page, to update the national veterinary training
programmes. Copies of such recommendations were later distributed to the participants of the
Regional Conference.
Activities of the OIE Regional Commission for Asia, the Far East
and Oceania
259. Dr Toshiro Kawashima commented on the Regional Commission for Asia, the Far East and
Oceania. He informed that Executive Members of the Regional Commission for Asia, the Far
East and Oceania were elected at the 77th OIE General Assembly held in Paris in May 2009:
Dr Toshiro Kawashima (Japan) as President, Dr Zhang Zhongqiu ( P.R. China) and Dr Davino
Catbagan (Philippines) as Vice-Presidents and Dr Sen Sovann (Cambodia) as Secretary
General.
260. During the past half year the President of the Commission attended and led regional meetings
with the aim of generic aspects in animal health for the Region, namely:
• Third FAO/OIE Regional Steering Committee Meeting of GF-TADs for Asia
and the Pacific, Tokyo, 23-24 July 2009, as Chair;
• Second OIE Regional Meeting on Strengthening Animal Health Information
Networking for HPAI Control in Asia, in Tokyo, 7-8 September and Kyoto, 9-
10 September 2009;
• OIE Regional Workshop on Communication, Singapore, 26-27 October 2009;
and
• Twenty-sixth Conference of OIE Regional Commission for Asia, the Far East
and Oceania, as President.
261. The DRAFT 5th OIE Strategic Plan which was discussed at the OIE Council in
September/October 2009 for submission to the OIE World Assembly for its adoption at the next
General Session in May 2010. It had been distributed by the OIE Headquarters to the
participants of the 77th General Session held in Paris in May 2009 for comments from OIE
Members by the end of June 2009.
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