Collaboration

Expanding Med-Vet-Net activities is a strategic goal and effortscontinue to raise awareness of Network activities with otherzoonoses-related groups from around the world.

EUUS-SAFEFOOD

European funding has been awarded to support collaboration withresearchers in the . This transatlantic network, calledEUUS-SAFEFOOD (http://www.euus-safefood.com), aims to develop astrategic alliance between food-borne zoonoses research workers inthe European Union and , in order to develop shared and commonresearch interests. The transatlantic network on food safetyEUUS-SAFEFOOD has now been running for a year, and is providingopportunities for joint meetings with the North American networkFSRRN and short-term missions in the .

PRIORITY SETTING

A further collaboration with the US Food Safety ResearchConsortium (FSRC) has resulted in a joint international meeting on"Priority setting of foodborne and zoonotic pathogens" in in July2006.

The conference was attended by over 100 participants fromEurope, , , and , with expertise including epidemiology, riskresearch, microbiology and economics. The meeting was organizedjointly by Workpackage 23 "Prioritizing foodborne and zoonotichazards at the EU level" and Workpackage 28 "Methods of attributinghuman zoonotic infection with different animals, food andenvironmental sources". It aimed to promote progress in food safetypriority setting by identifying key scientific issues andopportunities, and by fostering international scientificcollaboration.

Priority setting is of major importance in public healthpractice, and specifically for food-borne zoonotic infections as itis complicated by the multi-dimensional interactions betweendiverse pathogens, animal host factors, food production, foodconsumption patterns and human host factors. Many of the aspectsand issues were discussed during the conference.

SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Two virtual Special Interest Groups focussing on "New, Emergingand Neglected Zoonoses" and "Lyssaviruses" have been established tobuild a critical mass of expertise from within and outside theNetwork.

There are a range of zoonotic pathogens and diseases thatreceive relatively little attention and funding, but which stillpresent a real public health threat. In addition to these, thereare emerging zoonoses, which include diseases whose incidence isincreasing as well as novel pathogens. It is clear that there isconsiderable interest within Med-Vet-Net in this range of neglectedand emerging zoonoses. Med-Vet-Net is therefore creating a numberof directories of people who are interested in several neglectedzoonoses. These directories will contain not only interested peoplewithin Med-Vet-Net.

ANNUAL SCIENTIFIC MEETING

The Annual Scientific Meeting has also become a very successfulevent, with the last meeting, held in May 2006 in , attracting over190 delegates including, for the first time, 42 externalscientists. There were 70 short scientific presentations made bydelegates, and 150 poster presentations. Five keynote speakers fromNorth America, and Europe were invited and a workshop was held on"Networking for Food Safety" with contributors from , and the .

This year, the third meeting will be held at the conferencecentre "Il Ciocco", in the beautiful Tuscan town of in from 27 to30 June 2007. More information at http://www.medvetnet.org/mvnconf07

The Project Management team, based at the VeterinaryLaboratories Agency (VLA) in the