Good Morning Everyone, Welcome to the fourth weekof the e-conference and the start of both session 3 “Identification of other sub-themes to be included in the themes agreed above”, and session4 “Network to be inclusive or exclusive of other small ruminant diseases”. I write here concerning session 3 and will write separately to introduce session 4. Last week, session 2, we worked towards defining a smallish number of main themes for the proposed PPR-GREN. I suggested five themes that were not a priority list but more a sequence of what might be required in developing a strategy: “justification”, “co-ordination and implementation”, “immunity and vaccination”, “disease surveillance and immunity” and “laboratory technological developments”. Behind the scenes I have had some feedback from people involved at the sharp end of laboratory developments for PPR, saying that this latter main theme on laboratory technological improvements may not be required. This is because some new technical advances are well beyond the initial experimental stage and now await field trials and commercialization; others are in the experimental pipeline but will best be developed in conjunction with the discussions and recommendations coming from the other themes including immunization and disease surveillance. This raises the possibility that the laboratory focus might be best suited to a cross-cutting sub-theme across the other main themes. Towards the end of last week we had enthusiastic participation on socio-economics. Among the positive feedback was a suggestion from Dr Hassan Aidaros that socio-economics should be considered a main theme. One of the lessons learned from rinderpest eradication is that the final stages benefited from epidemiological targeting and that any new campaign would benefit from following an epidemiologically based approach from the outset. I see epidemiology as the “glue” that will inform and guide the whole PPR eradication strategy – and consequently a cross-cutting theme across all of the others. The socio-economics of disease control usually works best when combined with good epidemiological information. So, bearing in mind last week’s good advice on the wide range of advantages that socio-economics will bring, I suggest that socio-economics is also used as a cross-cutting theme with epidemiology. Could we have some feedback please about these proposals? Are all laboratory specialists in this conference prepared to accept that their main interest should be a cross-cutting rather than a “stand alone” theme? Are the socio-economists prepared to play a similar broad role across the board together with the epidemiologists? Whilst finalizing these main themes we must also deliver on the subject of session 3 which is identifying suitable sub-themes to be included in the main themes. Below are the 30 or more sub-themes that I listed after just the first two days of the e-conference. You should suggest many more. International and regional co-ordination, national co-ordination and management, zonal co-ordination (ecozones), outbreak control, levels of herd immunity to eradicate infection, using lessons learned from rinderpest eradication, local/traditional methods of disease control, risk-based strategy and management of resources, improved movement control, animal identification, vaccine quality control, the requirement for more production of PPR vaccine, available thermostable vaccine, DIVA vaccine and antibody tests, the role of the private sector in vaccine delivery, the use of paravets for vaccination, virus strain identification in relation to vaccines (well covered early in the conference), virus packaging, payment for vaccination, quantitative epidemiology, greater understanding of animal movement in the spread of disease, seasonality of disease and its relation to most suitable timing of vaccination, the role of other species (not sheep or goats), epidemiological risk-assessment, the effect of rinderpest eradication on the apparent upsurge of PPR, lack of epidemiological capacity, improved disease reporting, raised awareness for disease reporting, the use of private animal health service providers in disease surveillance, penside diagnosis, improved laboratory assays for diagnosis, more information on clinical signs. Please also note contributions with sub-themes from Dr Rafiqul Islam 18 Feb and Dr M Akram 19 Feb amongst others. ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the FAO-AnimalHealth-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=FAO-AnimalHealth-L&A=1