Download FP7 Project - ICONZ – Africa

Disease Control Tools (DISCONTOOLS) – FP7 Project
Introduction
1. The 4 year project which began in March 2008 will provide a mechanism for focusing
and prioritising research. It is hoped that this will deliver new and improved vaccines,
pharmaceuticals and diagnostic tests for the control of animal diseases including
zoonoses
2. DISCONTOOLS builds on the work of the European Technology Platform for Global
Animal Health (ETPGAH) with the aim of agreeing on the major gaps in the tools for
the control of the priority diseases and focusing research effort on these gaps. The
ultimate goal is to fill these gaps in the most efficient manner by building collaboration
across the animal health research network.
3. DISCONTOOLS is led by the International Federation for Animal Health - Europe
(IFAH-Europe) and integrates all relevant stakeholders at EU and national levels, from
academia, research, farmers, veterinarians, industry, consumers, regulators, etc. It
also includes stakeholders from international organisations, such as the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Organisation for
Animal Health OIE), as well as from non-European countries.
4. To achieve its objectives the project has three complimentary work strands backed
up by the development of a comprehensive communication strategy:i) To prioritise diseases in order to focus research to develop improved and newer tools
to control diseases, (Work package 2)
ii) To conduct a gap analysis of the priority diseases (Work package 3).
iii) To identify and evaluate new technologies and ensure that current and newly
developing technological advances are used to maximum effect. (Work package 4).
Prioritisation of diseases (work package 2)
5. The aim is to develop a prioritisation model for infectious diseases of animals that is
comprehensive and which provides a peer reviewed methodology. The criteria for the
prioritisation model have been agreed along with a scoring system. This is to be followed
by the systematic collection of disease information which will be peer reviewed by an
expert working group for each disease. Diseases will be scored against the criteria and
evaluated by experts in order to produce a prioritised list of diseases. Information on the
disease and the priority scoring will be available on a publically accessible database.
Gap analysis (Work package 3)
6. The overall objective is to conduct a gap analysis of the priority diseases to identify
those areas where information and knowledge of the disease is deficient and where
current tools are lacking, inadequate or could be improved. Work has progressed with
the production of a list of criteria for the analysis and the development of a model along
with the methodology to identify the gaps in knowledge and products.
7. Information will be collected in a standard format for validation and entry into a
specific disease database. A detailed analysis will then be carried out for each of the
priority diseases to identify gaps in key areas. A scoring system has been developed to
enable an analysis of the information collected from experts.
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Identification of new technologies. (Work package 4)
8. The third strand is to identify and evaluate new technologies to assess those that
have the potential for the development of new tools for control of infectious animal
diseases. The work includes a review of existing arrangements by stakeholders to
identify new technologies which can be applied to the development of new tools to
control diseases. Methodologies to identify and evaluate new technologies will be
investigated. Horizon scanning for new technologies is critical for all industries and the
ways in which a diverse range of industries such as human health, biotechnology,
immunology nanotechnology, crop protection, chemistry, biocide, communications etc
conduct their own horizon scanning and technology identification will be investigated.
After evaluation the use of new technologies which could be employed in the control of
animal diseases will be encouraged with the aim of deployment in the animal health
sector as early as possible.
9. The work is ongoing on the identification of a methodology. A workshop was
organized for 8 December 2009 to which a number of different industries were invited.
Details of papers presented to the workshop are on the DISCONTOOLS website.
Collection of information
10. A “Disease and Product Analysis” form has been produced in order to collect up to
date information for the prioritisation exercise and the gap analysis. A separate form will
be completed for each of the 49 diseases currently covered by the project. When
completed the forms will provide information on the disease and identify the main gaps
in the knowledge and understanding of that disease as well as the gaps in the availability
of effective tools for its control.
11. Expert Groups are being established for each of the 49 diseases currently on the
priority list identified during the development of the Action plan of the ETPGAH. The
purpose of the Expert Groups is to:

Review, update and finalise the “Disease and Product analysis” form for each
specific disease –

Propose a prioritised list of gaps using “Gap Analysis” form and “Product Gap
Analysis – Interpretation Guide”

Propose a scoring model as per the “Scoring Model” form and “Disease Scoring
Model – Interpretation guide”
Disease Database
12. The disease database for prioritisation and gap analysis has been developed with
the intention of keeping it as simple and flexible as possible. The size and complexity of
the database has posed some problems to the developers and designers of the website
but it is now operational. Detailed information for each disease and the scoring results
from the prioritisation and gap analysis will be entered into the database and will be
based on the output from the Expert groups over the next 6 months.
13. The database will be public. It will be updated regularly and will have links to other
databases currently under development by other projects such as the EMIDA ERA Net.
This will facilitate an exploration of completed work for a particular disease, work which
is ongoing and where the expertise for that disease is located.
Web site and database.
http://www.discontools.eu/home/index
J M Scudamore, 24 January 2010
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