The AUSVETPLAN Technical Review Group (TRG) held its 47^th meeting in Adelaide, South Australia on the 16-18 August 2022. This groups meets every 6 months.

The TRG comprises of biosecurity and emergency animal disease expert staff from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, each of the state and territory governments, and the CSIRO.

At TRG47, the committee discussed and prioritised 22 AUSVETPLAN manuals for revision during the next 12-24 months.

To support the current international situation with emergency animal diseases, the highest priority tasks listed for completion include:

• the major review of the foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) response strategy
• the valuation and compensation operational manual and
• the three operational manuals for disposal, destruction and decontamination.

Desktop exercises will also be conducted with TRG and industry representatives to test the updated lumpy skin disease and FMD response strategies, with lessons identified being actioned as quickly as possible.

The TRG also drafted a prioritised list of emergency animal diseases for which vaccine is a key component of the AUSVETPLAN response strategy. They considered what the impact of the use of vaccine in a response could have on the ability for Australia to eradicate a disease and the impact on the time taken to return access to markets, compared to a scenario where vaccine was not used for eradication.

Awareness was raised with the jurisdictional representatives on how the Security Sensitive Biological Agents (SSBA) regulatory scheme may have an impact on management of a response. This scheme imposes strict controls over the movement and storage of certain live or potentially live agents, including some of the emergency animal diseases that are covered in AUSVETPLAN. This information will be used by the jurisdictional representatives to strengthen their individual emergency animal disease response plans. 

Key outputs from TRG47 were:

• the approval of the African Horse Sickness response strategy for final endorsement by Animal Health Committee
• the approval of the enterprise manuals for dairy and for meat processing for final endorsement by Animal Health Committee
• members also agreed that due to the heightened emergency animal disease threats for Australia, the group would hold additional virtual meetings between the currently set meetings as required. Planning for the next meeting, which will take place virtually in November, is already underway.