Team

Who are the people behind SAFOSO? What inspires them and how do they contribute to solving animal health challenges? Pedro Moura shares his story.

In recent years, we have seen more and more disease spillover events from animals into people. Before SARS-CoV-2 swept the planet, humans were combatting unprecedented outbreaks of diseases like Zika virus in 2015 and Ebola virus in 2014. Cases of these diseases continue to be reported today1,2. Battles against devastating diseases like AIDS, tuberculosis, influenza, and malaria have been ongoing for many years. And now, we are seeing an unprecedented global outbreak of monkeypox and the emergence of Langya virus in people.

The Corona pandemic is not quite over when an unprecedented number of monkeypox cases are already making headlines around the globe. Is this just a coincidence or should we expect an increase in viral disease outbreaks in the future? What does this mean for businesses? Our Co-CEO Patrik Buholzer was interviewed on these questions by GU-Sicherheit, a Swiss company specialized on crisis management and crisis communication for business.

The Induction Training of the new EU-FORA project, funded by EFSA, started on the 5th of September and will run for 3 weeks in EFSA premises in Parma (Italy). Fifteen students (fellows) were selected to participate to the training. The induction training is coordinated by SAFOSO and implemented by a consortium including tutors from various European institutions. The focus of the training is on the EU regulatory and international framework regarding food safety and on the implementation of food safety risk assessment including data collection methodology and the statistical principles needed. The didactic is based on the experiential learning (“learning-by-doing”) concept and the learner is encouraged to actively engage throughout the program by asking questions, investigating, problem solving, decision making and taking responsibility.

SAFOSO AG implemented an Animal Health Surveillance workshop in Montenegro on 13 July 2022 for various veterinary competent authorities in the Balkan region with the main objectives of introducing the concept and methods for improving passive surveillance through the identification and collection of individual and population health indicators and discussing its impact on early detection of Foot and Mouth Disease and similar transboundary (FAST) diseases. The EU-FMD supported this workshop under its Pillar I framework. The feasibility and benefits of adopting and integrating of such a passive surveillance system in the current national surveillance efforts were discussed.

The environment sector needs assessment workshop for Indonesia took place in June 2022 organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization – Asia and Pacific Region technical team, IPB University, and SAFOSO for further engagement of the environment sector in One Health. A total of about 40 participants from 16 different organizations participated in the hybrid-format workshop based in Bogor City.

Today’s headlines are dominated by diseases such as COVID-19, African Swine Fever and Avian Influenza. These pandemics have exposed the vulnerability of the modern food production chain and the huge implications for animal welfare and food security . Some experts believe that outbreaks of new (and old) diseases will occur more often in the future and will have a huge impact on the food production system. It is important to better understand the impact and to identify options to make the global food system more resilient.

For many decades, the commercial poultry industries in the European Union and North America have maintained the policy not to vaccinate their birds against avian influenza. In the event of an outbreak of avian influenza on a poultry farm, regardless of the pathogenicity of the strain, the policy has been to cull and destroy all birds on the farm; the policy often applied to poultry farms in the immediate vicinity of the affected farm as well.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a concerted effort to engage the environment sector in One Health efforts for upstream disease prevention. To this end, the first ever pilot environment sector country mapping and needs assessment workshop took place in May in Vientiane, Lao PDR organized by the World Bank in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization – Asia and Pacific Region technical team and SAFOSO, as part of its effort to develop Laos Country One Health Profile. This workshop marks a very important step in the engagement of the environment sector in One Health.

In this research project funded by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), SAFOSO and AUSVET Europe developed a stochastic modelling framework to assess the risk of exposure of consumers to AMR genes through the consumption of chicken and lettuce products.

Ukrainian agricultural producers and food processors play a crucial role in both domestic and global food supply systems. Ukraine is the lead exporter in the world for sunflower oil with a global market share exceeding 50 %. It is also a major global player in the export of wheat: every tenth loaf of bread globally is baked using Ukrainian grain. In Africa and the Middle East, every second to third loaf of bread is baked from Ukrainian grain. Ukrainian corn is used in feed around the world; approximately one third of corn exports are directed to the European Union (EU). Ukraine is also the 7th largest global exporter of poultry meat and the 2nd largest exporter of honey.

Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine is having a great impact on milk processing companies, the extent of which depends on the specific location of the company. Companies located in areas with active hostilities have had to suspend their operations to protect the safety of their employees, including some belonging to the top ten dairy manufacturers in Ukraine. This applies primarily to the oblasts (provinces) with active hostilities in the north-east, east and south of the country.