Safeguarding global health is a moving target, with changes in climate and human activity raising new threats to public health, animal health and animal welfare. Decision support in the context of health management requires tools capable of making sense of large volumes of complex and multidisciplinary evidence. A One Health living risk assessment tool, L'ORA, was developed to assess the incursion risk for zoonotic and animal diseases using a One Health approach and allowing for automatic updates of the risk assessment. L'ORA estimates the incursion risk as the resultant of four steps: 1) Disease occurrence in source areas based on the distribution of diseases worldwide; 2) Rate of incursion based on the individuals or products moved from source areas to target areas and their probability of infection or contamination and contact with susceptible hosts in target areas; 3) Extent of disease spread in target areas, considering both domestic and wild host populations, vectors if the disease is vector-borne, and humans if the disease is zoonotic; and 4) Impact of the disease outbreak and concurrent control measures on public health, animal health and animal welfare, accounting for economic, societal, and environmental impacts. L'ORA is a decision support tool that was built as a generic tool comparing the relative risks of multiple diseases across multiple target areas. L'ORA monthly evaluates the incursion risk for each NUTS2 region in the European Union. Results can be used to identify areas of greater risk for each of the diseases to inform risk managers on where to focus attention and resources, and to inform, e.g., risk-based surveillance.

The objective of the G-RAID project was the mutual exchange of knowledge between the consortium members on the development of generic risk assessment (RA) tools for animal disease incursion. Seven generic RA tools were compared considering objectives, inputs, algorithms and outputs. All tools were designed for rapid risk assessment and could assess the incursion risk for multiple diseases and pathways. Specific objectives of the tools, however, varied from immediate response to new disease events to prioritization of diseases and horizon scanning, resulting in different approaches to evaluate the incursion risk of infectious animal diseases. Cross-validation was explored as a method to validate the generic RA tools. All tools were applied to a case study for African swine fever (ASF) in which the incursion risk for the Netherlands and Finland was assessed for the 2017 situation and two hypothetical scenarios with ASF cases reported in Germany. The generic RA tools were parameterized using the same global databases for disease occurrence and trade in live animals and animal products. Disease-related parameters, however, could not be standardized because of the different levels of detail included in the model calculations. A comparison of absolute results of the tools was not possible, because output parameters represented different endpoints, varied from qualitative probability levels to quantitative numbers, and were expressed in different units. Therefore, relative risks across countries and scenarios were calculated for each tool and compared. The risk assessment tools largely agreed upon the ranking of countries and scenarios based on relative risks and would thus indicate similar priorities for risk management As such, the cross-validation increased the credibility of results obtained with the generic RA tools. The cross-validation also contributed to the internal validation and further development of the tools. Results from the G-RAID project were disseminated to risk assessors and risk managers at a one-day symposium.

Design of a Risk based Control System for Toxoplasma gondii in a pork supply chainHeres L.(1)*, Swanenburg M.( 2) , de Koeijer A. A.( 2), Boender G.J.( 2), Oorburg D. (1), Urlings B

Toxoplasma gondii has frequently been named as one of the most important foodborne pathogens, in terms of its impact on human health.EFSA advised to include serological testing of pigs on T. gondii infections and audits of pig farms on risk factors for T. gondii infection (EFSA, 2011).In order to generate knowledge about the epidemiology and prevalence of T. gondii infections in pig herds we studied the long term seroprevalence on farms, persistence of infection and variation in results between and within farms.Sera which were routinely taken in Dutch pig slaughterhouses in the Netherlands for the serological monitoring of Mycobacterium avium infections in pigs (Hiller 2013) were also tested for anti T. gondii antibodies.Results of 120,666 sera, collected from January 2012 until August 2014, showed an average of 2% serological prevalence in pigs.Pigs from organic farms had a prevalence of 3,6%.Farm prevalence was much higher, ranging from approximately 30% for conventional farms to 90% for organic farms.Pigs delivered to the slaughterhouse during winter months had a higher prevalence than pigs delivered during summer months.It could be concluded that serological monitoring can be very useful in detecting farms infected with T. gondii.A test cut off of 20PP was the most appropriate.

Risk assessments are mostly carried out based on available data, which do not reflect all data theoretically required by experts to answer them. This study aimed at developing a methodology to assess data availability, accessibility and format, based on a scoring system and focusing on two diseases: Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis (VEE), still exotic to Europe, and alveolar echinococcosis, caused by Echinococcus multilocularis (EM), endemic in several Member States (MSs). After reviewing 36 opinions of the EFSA-AHAW Panel on risk assessment of animal health questions, a generic list of needed data was elaborated. The methodology consisted, first, in implementing a direct and an indirect survey to collect the data needed for both case studies: the direct survey consisted in a questionnaire sent to contact points of three European MSs (Belgium, France and the Netherlands), and the organization of a workshop gathering experts on both diseases. The indirect survey, focusing on the three MSs involved in the direct survey plus Spain, relied on web searches. Secondly, a scoring system with reference to data availability, accessibility and format was elaborated, to, finally, compare both diseases and data between MSs. The accessibility of data was generally related to their availability. Web searches resulted in more data available for VEE compared to EM, despite its current exotic status in the European Union. Hypertext markup language and portable document files were the main formats of available data. Data availability, accessibility and format should be improved for research scientists/assessors. The format of data plays a key role in the feasibility and rapidness of data management and analysis, through a prompt compilation, combination and aggregation in working databases. Harmonization of data collection process is encouraged, according to standardized procedures, to provide useful and reliable data, both at the national and the international levels for both animal and human health; it would allow assessing data gaps through comparative studies. The present methodology is a good way of assessing the relevance of data for risk assessment, as it allows integrating the uncertainty linked to the quality of data used. Such an approach could be described as transparent and traceable and should be performed systematically.

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