70th Meeting of the SPS Committee
Communication from the World Organisation for Animal
Health (OIE)
The
following communication, received on 19 October 2017, is being circulated at
the request of the OIE.
_______________
The
World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) is pleased to provide this report
for the information of WTO Members attending the 70th meeting of the
SPS Committee.
The
report summarises key developments in the OIE's standard-setting work
programme, along with updates on the OIE's Capacity Building activities.
1 Developments in the OIE standards for terrestrial and aquatic
animals
1.1. The Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases (Scientific Commission)
met from 4 to 8 September 2017. The Scientific Commission examined
comments from member countries on specific Terrestrial Animal Health
Code (Terrestrial Code) chapters under
discussion and provided advice to the Terrestrial Animal Health Standards
Commission (Code Commission) for their consideration. The Scientific Commission
also considered a scientific and technical document assessing the current risk
associated with BSE, the OIE Standards for BSE in the Terrestrial
Code and the link with the OIE official recognition of risk status
for BSE, together with member country interventions at the last General Session
in May 2017 and those submitted to the OIE after the General Session. Noting,
that the majority of Members did not support a proposal to discontinue the OIE
official recognition of risk status for BSE at this time, but supported a
detailed revision of the OIE standards on BSE as a priority, it requested that
the Director General establish an ad hoc Group dedicated to the revision of the
BSE Chapter. This first meeting of the ad hoc Group is planned for December
2017.
1.2. The Scientific Commission reiterated the need to provide Members
with preventive tools that would allow emergency, preventive and temporary
zoning in response to an increased disease threat, while avoiding unjustified
barriers to trade. The Scientific Commission and the Code Commission has
proposed to address this need by including the new provisions within the
existing concepts in the Terrestrial Code.
The revised Chapter 4.3. Zoning and compartmentalisation will be circulated for
OIE member countries' comments with the report of the Code Commission's
September 2017 meeting.
1.3. The Biological Standards Commission met from 12 to 15 September 2017
and reviewed comments from member countries and experts on the Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals.
It revised twenty nine chapters as well as the Glossary. These will be
circulated for member country comments, these comments will be considered at
its February 2018 meeting. The Biological Commission also discussed procedures
to strengthen the OIE network of Collaborating Centres in order to create
greater opportunities for collaboration and networking and improving their
support to the OIE and its member countries.