Objective
Bluetongue virus (BTV) and African horse sickness virus (AHSV) are reoviruses transmitted by vectors species belonging to the Culicoides genus that affect respectively ruminants and Equidae. BT disease has occurred sporadically in the Mediterranean region in the past, involving relatively short lived epizootics. Since 1998, large BT outbreaks affected different countries around the Mediterranean. The virus has extended further north than ever. During summer 2006, BT outbreaks were recorded in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands and France. This episode highlighted the the potential of BT to further established in Europe and presents a major risk to the livestock industry.
AHSV outbreaks have occurred in Southern Europe in the past, especially in Spain from 1987 t o 1991. It causes one of the most severe diseases in horses. It is closely related to BTV and is transmitted by the same Culicoides vectors, hence regions at risk of BTV can be regarded at risk of AHSV. Considerable advances and expertise already exist on these both Culicoides-borne diseases, the viral agents which cause them, the vector, their spread, etc, but in many cases it is not readily accessible or could be significantly enhanced by better communication between the research centres involved, and imp roved dissemination of data.
The coordination action will gather and share information on BT and AHS,
(i) promote regional studies on the risks of introduction of new strains and spread with inclusion of neighbouring areas (North Africa, Turkey) as an earl y warning,
(ii) survey the expansion of C. imicola in new northern territories taking into account the potential novel vectors group in Europe and
(iii) improve information technology for storage, communication and sharing of vector and sentinel surveillance and vaccination data. The consortium is bringing together national and international reference laboratories working on vectors, detection of infection, and surveillance and risk assessment.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesphysical geographycartographygeographic information systems
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyvirology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
- agricultural sciencesanimal and dairy sciencedomestic animalsanimal husbandry
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Keywords
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP6-2005-SSP-5-A
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
CA - Coordination actionCoordinator
PARIS
France