ANSES and GDS France renew their partnership of over ten years in veterinary public health
Today, Benoit Vallet, Director General of ANSES, and Christophe Moulin, President of the French Federation of Animal Health Protection Groups (GDS France), renewed their framework partnership agreement aimed at strengthening the prevention, surveillance and control of certain animal diseases that have a major impact on French livestock farming.
This new three-year agreement reflects the desire of the two organisations to extend the collaboration they began more than 10 years ago in order to strengthen the analytical reference system for three diseases of major economic importance to French livestock farming: mucosal disease/bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD), infectious bovine rhinotracheitis (IBR), and paratuberculosis.
This partnership will enable further work to be undertaken at the Niort site of ANSES's Ploufragan-Plouzané-Niort Laboratory with the aim of producing ever more effective diagnostic tools in line with the management measures taken. It will also provide an opportunity to continue research in support of these reference activities.
Over the last 10 years, the ANSES-GDS France collaboration has helped strengthen the activities of ANSES's Niort site in its role as National Reference Laboratory (NRL) for IBR; it has also led to the appointment of an NRL for BVD and to the creation of an expert laboratory for paratuberculosis, enabling numerous reagents to be developed and tested for the diagnosis of these three diseases. The research work carried out has contributed to the European Union's acceptance of France's IBR eradication programme, the introduction of a sanitation programme for BVD, and the development of a dedicated paratuberculosis programme.
The collaboration with GDS France is also an asset enabling ANSES to fulfil its mission regarding epidemiological surveillance in animal health, as the National Epidemiological Surveillance Platform for Animal Health (ESA Platform) requires close partnerships with players in the field.
The renewal of the agreement with GDS France and the active involvement of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region both reinforce the position of the Niort site of ANSES's Ploufragan-Plouzané-Niort Laboratory as a centre of innovation in animal health.