Project Description

General objective

Aquaculture was growing all over the world and contributes significantly to human nutrition, poverty alleviation and sustainable development. The spread of transboundary diseases is a significant threat to global aquatic animal production and for this reason the cooperation between countries, an effective management of the diseases and the prudent use of veterinary medicinal products (VMPs) are essential to obtain safe fish for the final consumer.
In accordance with the priorities set by the OIE Aquatic Animal Health Strategy, the project aims to provide technical assistance to promote:

capacity building, sharing of protocols for fish production and diseases surveillance and control;

sharing of professional know‐how;

to strengthen and facilitate the management of aquaculture production, to implement an advanced use of GIS techniques, to support surveillance and disease response, to enhance epidemiological surveillance, to limit the use of antimicrobials and VMP in finfish production and to improve diagnostic methods to support diseases detection and control for aquatic animal diseases.

Project Length

The project lasts 36 months starting from the contract signature.

Project activities

The project is divided in three work packages, each including a series of sub-tasks. Each work package is coordinated by a task leader in coordination with the other work package.

WP1	WP2	WP3
Geographic Information System (GIS) in surveillance and diseases response for aquatic animal disease	Responsible use of Veterinary Medicinal Products (VMPs)	Diagnostic methods
to enable knowledge and expertise exchange in the framework of the WOAH scientific network capacity building in the management of GIS project to support surveillance and disease response for aquatic animal disease	to develop specific guidelines for a safety approach, standard protocols for sampling and identification of bacterial pathogens, updated antimicrobial sensitivity tests (such as MIC) limiting the use of antibiotics and reducing AMR to enhance the Good Management Practices (GMP) of farmers by providing guidance on establishing biosecurity measures and tailor-made vaccination plans to strengthen the knowledge of Veterinary Services and aquaculture business operators in these fields through the organisation and development of specific courses (e.g. biosecurity and vaccination for farmers and aquatic animal health professional, good laboratory practice for technicians, autogenous vaccine production for small scale pharmaceutical companies)	to perform specific protocols (SOPs) for the identification of relevant viral and bacterial pathogens of freshwater and marine species to participate to proficiency testing for further implementing standardization of newly developed diagnostic laboratory protocols.

Work Package 1 Description

Background

GIS technologies can be used to support veterinary services in surveillance and disease response in aquatic animal. Nevertheless, applying GIS technology in the aquaculture domain requires substantial background and skills in GIS discipline integrated with epidemiological aspects.

Specific objectives

The objective of this work package are:

to enable knowledge and expertise exchange in the framework of the OIE scientific network;
capacity building in the management of GIS project to support surveillance and disease response for aquatic animal disease.

Activities

As far as regarding the capacity building, the first step will be the identification of the barriers to the implementation of GIS techniques that can be used to support the veterinary service in the surveillance and early response activities. The next steps will be a series of tailored webinars, courses, and training-on-the-job activities aimed at raising capacity on planning GIS projects to be used to support surveillance and disease response for aquatic animal disease. The activity program will be structured in two distinct GIS technologies branches: GIS for freshwater (lakes and rivers) and GIS for the marine and brackish water (lagoons). With regards to the knowledge exchange activities, a dedicated program for the exchange of knowledge, skills, competencies and abilities among GIS experts of the partner organisations and external advisors will be organised. The program will be based on webinars, workshops, sharing protocols, and jointly working activities with the aim of facilitating the identification of methodologies and knowledge/data gaps, and to propose improvements of existing GIS analysis techniques that will be used in the development of the capacity building activities. The activities under this WP could complement the GeoZone project.

Tasks

Task 1.1 - GIS essentials

This task will be implemented between partners and beneficiaries with both a good and low level of knowledge on GIS and willing to share and acquire GIS capacity in specific scientific GIS aquatic domains in general and on zoning applications (Aquatic Code - Chapter 4.2) in specific. This is a collaborative activity of mutual benefit for all the people involved.

Task 1.2 - GIS application for freshwater aquaculture

This task aims at defining a framework and providing capacity building on implementing GIS projects for freshwater aquaculture application.

Task 1.3 - Applied epidemiology to freshwater aquaculture

This task will provide an overview of epidemiology applied to surface water aquaculture. The capacity-building program will cover basic aspects of the two areas of aquatic animal health:

disease monitoring, surveillance and surveys;
spread and impact of aquatic animal pathogens.

Task 1.4 - Capacity building in GIS application for marine and brackish water aquaculture

This task aims at providing capacity building on implementing GIS projects for marine and brackish aquaculture application.

Task 1.5 - Applied epidemiology to marine and brackish water aquaculture

This task will provide an overview of epidemiology applied to marine and brackish water aquaculture.

Task 1.6 - E-learning module

Alongside webinars detailed in Annex 1, an e-learning module titled “Introduction to Geographic Information System applied to aquatic animal health” will be developed. This module will be part of the project training, but since its development will take into account the OIE e-learning modules guidelines, it will also be intended for the e-learning catalogue of the OIE Training Portal. The release of this e-module is scheduled for the 18th month of the project.

Involved Institutes

Team Leader

Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie - IZSVe

Viale dell'università 10, 35020, Legnaro (PD), Italy

Partners

Istituto Zooprofilattico di Liguria, Piemonte e Valle d'Aosta (IZSLPV)

Istituto Zooprofilattico della Sardegna (IZSSA)

Istituto Zooprofilattico di Abruzzo e Molise (IZSAM)

Istituto Zooprofilattico dell’Umbria e delle Marche (IZSUM)

Istituto Zooprofilattico del Lazio e della Toscana (IZSLT)

Istituto Zooprofilattico del Mezzogiorno (IZSM)

Beneficiaries

Cambodia:
Department of Aquaculture Development, Fisheries Administration; Fish Health and Diseases Management and AMR Teams.

Morocco:
Division des Produits de la Pêche et de l'Aquaculture; Direction de Contrôle des Produits Alimentaires; Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits Alimentaires.

Israel:
Israeli Veterinary Services and Animal Health.

Tunisia:
Institut National des Sciences et Technologies de la Mer (INSTM) Laboratoire d'Aquaculture.

Advisors

Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI)
OIE Collaborating Centre on epidemiology and risk assessment of aquatic animal diseases.

Danish Technical University – DTU AQUA
European Reference Laboratory for fish and crustacean diseases and OIE Reference Laboratory for Viral haemorrhagic septicaemia (VHS),
Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS)
OIE Collaborating Centre for emerging aquatic animal diseases and FAO Reference centre for antimicrobial resistance (AMR),
Weymouth, United Kingdom.