Emergency Prevention System (EMPRES) for transboundary animal and plant pests and diseases. The EMPRES-livestock: an FAO initiative.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) decided that the Organization should be focusing on the goal of enhancing world food security and the fight against transboundary animal diseases and plant pests. A mandate was obtained from the Governing Council and Conference to establish two new Special Programmes to address these fundamental issues. The first is the Special Programme on Food Security and the second is the Emergency Prevention System against transboundary animal and plant pests and diseases (EMPRES). EMPRES has two components, created after 1994 by a new policy of the Director-General of the FAO to better direct the FAO: the plant pest component focuses on the desert locust, whereas the animal diseases component focuses primarily on rinderpest but also on other epidemic diseases (e.g., contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, foot-and-mouth disease, peste de petit ruminants). For the program as a whole, a high-level EMPRES Steering Committee was established. This is chaired by the FAO Director-General and consists of the heads of key departments (Assistant Directors-General) and Divisional Directors. For the animal diseases component (hereafter referred to as EMPRES-Livestock Programme), FAO established a management unit within its Animal Health Service (AGAH), that is, the Infectious Diseases-EMPRES Group, to be responsible for implementation, including liaison with the Joint FAO-International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Division in Vienna for some of the functions suballocated there. This paper briefly describes FAO EMPRES Livestock, its vision, its mission, and its activities to assist FAO developing member countries and regions in improving the ability of veterinary services to reduce the risks of introduction and/or dissemination of transboundary animal disease, by preventing, controlling, and eradicating those diseases, assisting countries in building their own surveillance/early warning systems, establishing contingency plans, and establishing a global information system for disease monitoring.