7 and 8 December 2006 in Helsinki, Finland - Finnish Food Safety Authority (Evira)

The meeting was organised jointly by the Finnish presidency and the Commission. The main objective was to exchange information in order to strengthen the cooperation and collaboration among Member States, Acceding States and the Russian Federation regarding the eradication of rabies.

Previous steps included a working group meeting on "Rabies co-operation", held during the Informal CVO meeting in Vienna on 16-19 May 2006. A technical meeting on "co-operation with Russia on Rabies eradication" was held in Paris on 24 May 2006, where there was a consensus on the need for EU/RU transboundary cooperation to eradicate rabies in the regions at risk.

• Agenda
• List of participants

Abstracts on presentations:

Descriptive epidemiology
Rabies eradication in the EU: an overview (Francisco Javier Reviriego Gordejo, COM)

Situation of rabies in the eu

• Current rabies situation in Estonia (Director general Ago Pärtel)
• Situation of rabies in Germany (Dr. Hans-Joachim Bätza)
• Situation of rabies in Latvia - Rabies Eradication Program 2005 – 2006 (Deputy Director Zanda Matuzale)
• On control of rabies in Lithuania (Director Prof. Kazimieras Lukauskas)
• Situation of rabies in Poland: Rabies control of rabies with oral vaccination of wildlife (Marcin Smreczak and Anna Hoffman)

N.B. Rabies situation of Austria, Finland and Slovenia is summarised in presentations later on in the proceedings.

Situation Of Rabies In Bordering Countries

• Situation of rabies in republic of Bulgaria (Dr. Petya Petkova and Dr. Tihomir Todorov)
• Situation of rabies in Romania: 2007-2016 Rabies Eradication Program
• Rabies in the Russian Federation (Dr. A. Metlin)
• Rabies situation, prevention and eradication in Western Russia – Specific case: Kaliningrad (CVO Yuri Pavlov)

Co-Operation and eradication

Co-financing rabies eradication in the EU (new 90/424)
Experience on transboundary cooperation

• Practical cooperation
• Scientific cooperation

Principles in rabies eradication
Challenges of new programme
Rabies situation and oral vaccination of foxes in the Czech Republic
Rabies situation in Austria in 2006 Involvement of stakeholders/hunters in rabies eradication
Rabies situation in Slovenia and experience in OVF gained over the past decades
Oral vaccines used for rabies control programmes : types, storage, quality control and performance in different species
Rabies situation in Finland – surveillance and monitoring of rabies and monitoring of antibody levels in the vaccination area

Conclusions