OCF Risk Assessment
The Agency is regularly called upon by the Ministry responsible for Agriculture to analyze the health situation, to assess the risks associated with bluetongue and to propose and assess changes in surveillance and control measures, nationally and sometimes local. Its opinions have made it possible to identify a certain number of research needs aimed at better risk assessment and better control of the spread of the virus. Several recommendations relating to monitoring, control and prevention measures were also made. Following the start of the BTV1 BTV epizootic in Corsica at the beginning of September 2013, a collective emergency expert group (Gecu) was created to answer questions from the DGAl relating to the assessment of management measures for outbreaks of FCO.
National reference laboratory for the diagnosis of FCO
The ANSES laboratory for animal health in Maisons-Alfort provides virological diagnosis (detection of the viral genome by PCR, typing, viral isolation) as well as serological diagnosis.
As part of its reference activities, the Maisons-Alfort animal health laboratory develops diagnostic techniques by PCR and coordinates the network of departmental veterinary laboratories for molecular diagnostics. The real-time PCR technique, developed in the laboratory, has thus been decentralized to 65 LVDs. In collaboration with three manufacturers, the NRL also participated in the development and validation of commercial kits for quantitative PCR (PCRq) in order to ensure rapid distribution of diagnostic kits in approved departmental laboratories. ANSES’s NRL FCO participates in the network led by the Community Reference Laboratory for FCO hosted by the Algete laboratory in Spain.
ANSES is also strongly committed to the National Animal Health Epidemiological Surveillance Platform, which ensures the match between the health hazards present or threatening the territory and the systems put in place to monitor these hazards.
Bluetongue Vaccine Evaluations and Authorizations
The National Agency for Veterinary Medicinal Products (ANMV) assesses and, if necessary, issues national and European marketing authorization (AMM) dossiers for all veterinary medicinal products. Currently, the fourteen vaccines with marketing authorization are inactivated vaccines containing a single serotype (serotype 1 or 8) or two serotypes (serotypes 1-8 or 2-4). They are intended for cattle and/or sheep and make it possible to prevent or reduce viremia and in certain cases, to reduce the clinical signs caused by the bluetongue virus.