Development of generic contingency plans for disease emergencies of aquatic animals
Development of contingency plans for significant aquatic animal diseases is a critical first step in the management of disease outbreaks. In this respect, aquatic animal health policy development is lagging behind terrestrial animal health policy by approximately 20 years.
At the Melbourne workshops, all sectors of the fishing industry strongly supported the need for a national approach to aquatic animal disease control issues and identified the writing of contingency plans for disease incursions to be an important task. Also they noted there was a need to build on the unanimous support for this contingency planning process and there was an expectation that some generic, sectoral plans could be developed very rapidly.
Final report
Project products
Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram: enhancement of the emergency disease management capability in Victoria - developing a Victorian Control Centres Management Manual
BCA: development of generic contingency plans for disease emergencies of aquatic animals
Development of contingency plans for significant aquatic animal diseases is a critical first step in the management of disease outbreaks. In this respect, aquatic animal health policy development is lagging behind terrestrial animal health policy by approximately 20 years.
At the Melbourne workshops, all sectors of the fishing industry strongly supported the need for a national approach to aquatic animal disease control issues and identified the writing of contingency plans for disease incursions to be an important task. Also they noted there was a need to build on the unanimous support for this contingency planning process and there was an expectation that some generic, sectoral plans could be developed very rapidly.
Revision of the existing AQUAVETPLAN: ‘Viral Encephalopathy and Retinopathy Disease Strategy Manual’
Aquatic Animal Health Subprogram: enhancing the emergency disease response capability of Department of Fisheries and industry bodies associated with non-maxima oyster culture
Final report
A two day disease emergency response workshop was held at Geraldton, Western Australia, in October 2002. The objective of the exercise was to test the industry and government response to a disease emergency among non-maxima pearl farms at the Abrolhos Islands. The exercise was coordinated by staff from the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia and involved regional and head office staff from the Western Australian Departments of Fisheries and Agriculture as well as industry representatives. During the two day exercise the participants worked through emergency scenarios as well as having to respond to unexpected obstacles proposed by the exercise coordinators.
The outcome of the exercise was the education of the participants in the operational procedures involved in a disease emergency response at the State level, an evaluation of the response with suggestions for improvements in emergency management planning, the documentation of an emergency management plan and input into the new Environmental Code of Practice for the industry.