93^RD MEETING OF THE SPS COMMITTEE

COMMUNICATION FROM THE WORLD ORGANISATION FOR ANIMAL HEALTH (WOAH)

The following communication, received on 15 October 2025, is being circulated at the request of the WOAH.

_______________

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) is pleased to provide this report for the information of WTO Members attending the 93^rd meeting of the SPS Committee.

The report summarises key activities from WOAH's standard-setting work programme.

1  Developments in the WOAH standards for terrestrial and aquatic animals

1.1.  The four WOAH Specialist Commissions met in-person during September 2025 to continue work to review existing, and develop new WOAH international standards in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code, the Aquatic Animal Health Code, the Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals and the Manual of Diagnostic Tests for Aquatic Animals, along with other activities relevant to each Commission's terms of reference.

1.2.  Reports of these four meetings, including new and revised standards circulated for comment, will be available on the WOAH website from October/November 2025. The links to these reports, once available, are provided below:

·_        Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission, September 2025 meeting report

·_        Biological Standards Commission, September 2025 meeting report

·_        Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases, September 2025 meeting report

·_        Terrestrial Animal Health Commission, September 2025 meeting report

1.3.  WOAH would like to highlight to the Committee the following work undertaken during these meetings.

1.1  Terrestrial Animal Health Code

1.4.  The Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission circulated 21 texts (including glossary definitions and new and revised chapters) for comments in its September 2025 report. Twelve of these texts will be proposed for adoption at the 93^rd WOAH General Session in May 2026.

1.5.  Chapters that will be proposed for adoption at the 93^rd General Session, included among others, a new draft Chapter 4.X. 'Biosecurity', new draft Chapters 5.4. to 5.6. that address Measures and procedures applicable to the export, transit and import of commodities, respectively, a new draft Chapter 8.X. 'Infection with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus', and a new draft Chapter 10.X. 'Infection with avian metapneumovirus (Turkey rhinotracheitis and swollen head syndrome of chickens)'.

1.6.  Chapters circulated for comment, included among others, a new draft Chapter 3.X. 'Emergency management', a new draft Chapter 8.10. 'Japanese encephalitis', and a new draft Chapter 12.11. 'Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis'.

1.2  Aquatic Animal Health Code

1.7.  The Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission circulated eight texts (including glossary definitions and new and revised chapters) for comments in its September 2025 report.

1.8.  Chapters circulated for comment, included among others, a revised draft Chapter 4.3. 'Application of compartmentalisation', a revised draft Chapter 4.7. 'Fallowing in Aquaculture', a proposed approach to revision of Section 5 'Trade measures, importation/exportation procedures and health certification', a revised draft Article 9.9.2. of Chapter 9.2. 'Infection with Aphanomyces astaci (crayfish plague)', revised draft Articles 10.3.5. and 10.3.6. of Chapter 10.3. 'Infection with Gyrodactylus salaris', a revised draft Article 10.4.9. of Chapter 10.4. 'Infection with infectious salmon anaemia' and a proposed update on viral taxonomy for the Aquatic Code.

1.3  Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals

1.9.  The Biological Standards Commission considered 17 chapters that had been updated by relevant Reference Centre experts and further edited by the Commission and circulated these for comments in its September 2025 report. All these chapters will be proposed for adoption at the 93^rd WOAH General Session in May 2026.

1.10.  Of these chapters, two are introductory chapters on general standards (on collection, submission and storage of diagnostic specimens, and on transport of biological materials), and the remaining 15 are disease-specific, including among others, adding six appendices to the foot and mouth disease chapter justifying the choice of assays and their ratings given in Table 1 'Test methods available for the diagnosis of FMD and their purpose' and thoroughly updating Section C 'Requirements for vaccines and diagnostic biologicals' of the chapter on leishmaniosis.

1.4  Manual of Diagnostic Tests for Aquatic Animals

1.11.  The Aquatic Animals Commission continued its update and reformatting of the disease-specific chapters of the Aquatic Manual to ensure the most current guidance is provided to members. The Commission circulated a revised draft Chapter 2.4.5. 'Infection with Perkinsus marinus'; a revised draft Chapter 2.4.6. 'Infection with Perkinsus olseni'; and a revised draft Chapter 2.4.7. 'Infection with Xenohaliotis californiensis' for comment.

1.12.  The Aquatic Animals Commission also circulated for comment one crustacean disease-specific chapter with amended sections regarding susceptible species (Sections 2.2.1. and 2.2.2. of Chapter 2.2.2. 'Infection with Aphanomyces astaci [crayfish plague]') as well as revised case definitions provided in Section 6. 'Corroborative diagnostic criteria' of three molluscan disease-specific chapters (Chapter 2.4.2. 'Infection with Bonamia exitiosa', Chapter 2.4.3. 'Infection with Bonamia ostreae' and Chapter 2.4.4. 'Infection with Marteilia refringens').

1.13.  All four Specialist Commissions also progressed discussions of other work items and updated work programme's considering the progress of work and new requests.

2  WOAH Standards Online Navigation Tool

2.1.  The online versions of WOAH International Standards, the Terrestrial Animal Health Code, Aquatic Animal Health Code, Manual of Diagnostic Tests for Aquatic Animals and the Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals, were updated as of 5 September 2025 to reflect all new and revised texts adopted at the 92^nd WOAH General Session in May 2025.

2.2.  In addition to the dynamic, searchable online version, you can also download PDFs of the entire Terrestrial Code, Aquatic Code, Aquatic Manual or Terrestrial Manual, or of a specific chapter.

2.3.  To access WOAH Standards, go to: Codes and Manuals - WOAH - World Organisation for Animal Health.

3  Provision of scientific advice to WOAH and its Members

3.1.  The Director General establishes ad hoc Groups to provide specific technical and scientific advice required to support the work of the WOAH and the WOAH Specialist Commissions. WOAH publishes information on its website providing the dates and terms of reference of proposed ad hoc Groups as well as reports once these have been considered by the relevant Specialist Commissions and validated.

3.2.  This information is available on the WOAH website at: ad hoc Groups

4  WOAH official recognition of animal health status and control programmes

4.1.  WOAH members can apply to be included in the list of countries with an officially recognized status for the following six priority diseases: bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), foot and mouth disease (FMD), contagious bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), African horse sickness, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) and classical swine fever (CSF).

4.2.  The full list of countries and their recognized status for AHS, BSE, CBPP, CSF, FMD, and PPR can be accessed online on the WOAH public website.

5  Self-declared disease status

5.1.  In accordance with the provisions of the Terrestrial Code or the Aquatic Code, WOAH members may wish to self-declare the freedom of their country, zone or compartment from a WOAH listed disease. WOAH can publish a member's self-declaration for disease-freedom on the WOAH website after a member has provided the relevant documented evidence of compliance with the provisions of the relevant chapters of the Codes. The WOAH screens applications and considers them for publication in accordance with its Standard Operating Procedure.

5.2.  All published self-declarations are available on the WOAH website at: Self-declared Disease Status - WOAH - World Organisation for Animal Health.

__________