FAO, OIE launch global effort against foot-and-mouth disease

The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health have launched a major programme to bring food-and-mouth disease (FMD) under global control.

The programme will be implemented in the framework of the Global Framework for the Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases, signed by FAO and OIE in 2004.

The FMD situation worldwide merits global attention and it needs to be controlled at source and step-by-step, according to FAO chief veterinary officer Joseph Domenech.

FMD easily crosses national boundaries so regional and international approaches are needed on the lines of the successful FAO-led Global Rinderpest Eradication Programme (GREP) launched in 1994, which eliminated the devastating disease in cattle.

Regional programmes will reflect local contexts and diversity of the FMD virus and serve as the basis for the definition of the global campaign.