The progressive control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the Republic of Kazakhstan: Successes and challenges.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has historically caused far-reaching economic losses to many regions worldwide. FMD control has been problematic, and the disease is still prevalent in many West and Central Asia countries. Here, we review the progress made by Kazakhstan in achieving freedom from FMD and discuss some of the challenges associated with maintaining the FMD-free status, as evidenced by the occurrence of an outbreak in 2022. A combination of zoning, movement control, vaccination, and surveillance strategies led to eliminating the disease in the country. However, the circulation of the FMD virus in the region still imposes a risk for Kazakhstan, and coordinated strategies are ultimately needed to support disease elimination. The results presented here may help design effective pathways to progressively eliminate the disease in West and Central Asia while promoting the design and implementation of regional actions to support FMD control.

Insights into the Molecular Epidemiology of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia in Terms of O/ME-SA/Ind-2001e Sublineage Expansion.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has long been recognized as a highly contagious, transboundary disease of livestock incurring substantial losses and burdens to animal production and trade across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Due to the recent emergence of the O/ME-SA/Ind-2001 lineage globally contributing to the expansion of FMD, molecular epidemiological investigations help in tracing the evolution of foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) across endemic and newly affected regions. In this work, our phylogenetic analysis reveals that the recent FMDV incursions in Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan in 2021-2022 were due to the virus belonging to the O/ME-SA/Ind-2001e sublineage, belonging to the cluster from Cambodian FMDV isolates. The studied isolates varied by 1.0-4.0% at the VP1 nucleotide level. Vaccine matching tests indicated that the vaccination policy in the subregion should be tailored according to the peculiarities of the ongoing epidemiologic situation. The current vaccination should change from such vaccine strains as O1 Manisa (ME-SA), O no 2102/Zabaikalsky/2010 (O/ME-SA/Mya-98) (r1 = 0.05-0.28) to strains that most closely antigenically match the dominant lineage O No. 2212/Primorsky/2014 (O O/ME-SA//Mya-98) and O No. 2311/Zabaikalsky/2016 (O ME-SA/Ind-2001) (r1 = 0.66-1.0).

Implementation of a Regional Training Program on African Swine Fever As Part of the Cooperative Biological Engagement Program across the Caucasus Region.

A training and outreach program to increase public awareness of African swine fever (ASF) was implemented by Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Ministries of Agriculture in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. The implementing agency was the company SAFOSO (Switzerland). Integration of this regional effort was administered by subject matter experts for each country. The main teaching effort of this project was to develop a comprehensive regional public outreach campaign through a network of expertise and knowledge for the control and prevention of ASF in four neighboring countries that experience similar issues with this disease. Gaps in disease knowledge, legislation, and outbreak preparedness in each country were all addressed. Because ASF is a pathogen with bioterrorism potential and of great veterinary health importance that is responsible for major economic instability, the project team developed public outreach programs to train veterinarians in the partner countries to accurately and rapidly identify ASF activity and report it to international veterinary health agencies. The project implementers facilitated four regional meetings to develop this outreach program, which was later disseminated in each partner country. Partner country participants were trained as trainers to implement the outreach program in their respective countries. In this paper, we describe the development, execution, and evaluation of the ASF training and outreach program that reached more than 13,000 veterinarians, farmers, and hunters in the partner countries. Additionally, more than 120,000 booklets, flyers, leaflets, guidelines, and posters were distributed during the outreach campaign. Pre- and post-ASF knowledge exams were developed. The overall success of the project was demonstrated in that the principles of developing and conducting a public outreach program were established, and these foundational teachings can be applied within a single country or expanded regionally to disseminate disease information across borders; overall, this method can be modified to raise awareness about many other diseases.