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  As 2021 comes to an end, let the festivities begin !  The EURL team wishes you the best for the year to come : A year full of health, joy and success, as well as cooperation and scientific discoveries !   See you in 2022 !   The EURL Team

You may have already identified, the EU One Health report is available on the EFSA website or ECDC website. You would be able to access 2 new interactive tools on foodborne outbreaks: dashbord, map. Report: Direct link from EFSA website Image from EFSA website.

The first Reflection Board (RB) meeting between representatives of RB organizations (from the EU Platform on Animal Welfare) and the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, was held remotely via Teams on the morning 26th of November 2021. This meeting was the occasion to present the objectives of the Centre, its organization, and the previous and actual work programmes, to exchange, discuss and identify possible future collaboration and interests.   In total 14 participants, six of them from the seven EU platform entities forming the RB, four from EURCAW-Poultry-SFA were connected. Three representatives from Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety and one from the EURCAW-Ruminants&Equines attended as observers.   Virginie Michel presented the aim and activities of the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, the team, as what the centre is, and is not. The Centre aims at supporting CAs and Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety in improving the enforcement of the legislation on animal welfare, which is one of the European Commission's priorities. The Centre provides technical support and coordinated assistance to national Competent Authorities in carrying out official controls in the field of animal welfare. EURCAW-Poultry-SFA also contributes to the dissemination of good practices on animal welfare in the EU. In particular, by providing scientific and technical expertise, carrying out studies and developing methods for improving and assessing the welfare level of animals. Antonio Velarde presented the role of the RB. This was followed by the past and present Work Programmes presentation, by activities, with a focus on what was achieved, and what is planned for 2022. Mutual interactions and exchanges were then discussed.   The topics discussed can be found in the meeting report. Moreover, the presentation is available here.

The second EU-network meeting between representatives of Competent Authorities (CAs) and the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, took place online on October 2021, 26-27, on 2 * 0.5 days. This meeting was the occasion to present the objectives of the Centre, the past and present work programme, and the Centre’s work since its nomination. Furthermore, it permitted to discuss potential future priority areas of work, identify possible collaboration at the national level, and identify the main needs and expectations of CAs.   In total 76 participants, from 23 EU Member States participated, including 51 delegates from CAs, five from Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety, and 16 from the three EURCAWs. Two EFSA members and two EFTA representatives attended as observers.   During the first morning, Virginie Michel, Coordinator of the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, presented the aim and activities of the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA. The EURCAW-Poultry-SFA team presented the past and present Work Programmes with a focus on what was achieved by the Centre, and what is planned for 2022. The following morning, two EU Member States CAs representatives presented respectively a success story and a good practice. Several Topics proposed by EURCAW-Poultry-SFA and the Member States were then discussed altogether.   The topics discussed can be found in the meeting report. Moreover, the presentation is available here.

The coordinator and deputy coordinator of EURCAW-Poultry-SFA took the opportunity to meet with Finnish and Swedish Reference Centres for animal welfare. The Finnish Centre was represented by Satu Raussi & Tiina Kauppinen, and the Swedish Centre by Lotta berg & Birgitta Staaf-Larsson. During these meetings, respective roles of the national and EU Reference Centres were explained and possible collaborations were identified, among which welfare assessment indicators and training of official services.   The meeting in Sweden was also the opportunity to visit a broiler and a layer farm as an “example of good practice” of rearing fast-growing broiler chickens and layers in aviaries in good welfare conditions.  

In the context of the postponement of the World Poultry Conference in 2022 this webinar was the opportunity to present some works related to poultry welfare which were initially foreseen to be presented in 2020. Six oral presentations were given on topics such as adaptability of poultry genotypes to organic rearing, disturbance in broiler chicken, comparison between slow-growing broiler genotypes, blunting of the beak as an alternative to beak trimming in layers, exploration, and neophobia in domestic fowl or the impact of low protein diet on the development of footpad dermatitis in broiler chicken. The coordinator of EURCAW-Poultry-SFA, Virginie Michel, was co-chair of this session.

At the occasion of the annual meeting of the working group IX “Poultry welfare and management” of WPSA (World Poultry Science Association) that was held in Thessaloniki (Greece), some members of the Centre took the opportunity to meet with local welfare researchers. This visit was the opportunity to organize a meeting with the Greek Reference Centre for animal welfare, represented by Dr. Evengelina Sossidou. During this meeting, respective roles of the national and EU references Centres were explained and possible collaborations were identified, among which welfare assessment indicators and training of official services. The meeting was also the opportunity to visit a broiler farm as an “example of good practice” of rearing fast-growing broiler chickens in good welfare conditions.                                      

Organized by EURCAW-Poultry-SFA. The webinar was held via Teams. Target audience: Official inspectors from the Competent Authorities of the EU MSs Attendance through invitation only.   The PDF of the presentation is available here. The webinar recording is available here.    Description: Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24 September 2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires assessing the state of consciousness of the animals in order to identify if the stunning and killing have been effectively done, but it is not an easy assessment. During this webinar, EURCAW-Poultry-SFA reviewed the most valid, reliable, and feasible indicators to assess the state of consciousness after waterbath stunning (WBS) of broiler chicken, before and after bleeding, giving the opportunity for discussion and doubts resolution.   The aim of the webinar was to: Review the most valid and feasible indicators of consciousness after WBS. Discuss the main results of the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA study on test inter-observer repeatability of the indicators of consciousness evaluated in commercial slaughterhouses. Discuss the impact of electrical key parameters on stunning efficiency. Recommend animal-based indicators (ABIs) and their methods of assessment (where and how to do the assessment, during how much time, how to do the sampling), providing video examples.   The webinar was attended by 172 people (251 registered), from 23 EU Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Deutschland, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.   Schedule: 10:00-10:10: General presentation of the Centre - V. Michel 10:10-10:20: Indicators of consciousness - A. Velarde 10:20-10:30: Technical study - A. Contreras 10:30-10:45: Methods and recommendations - A. Varvaró and V. Michel 10:45-12:00: Discussion   This webinar has been organized within sub-activity 4.3: Develop course material for specific topics, of the working program 2021-2022.

In 2021, the EURL for Bee health initiated a new format to exchanges within the NRL network. The first EURL webinar was organized on 30th November. The objective was to discuss the activities on viruses for 2022 and later. After a presentation of the advances in the activities on virus disease diagnosis at the EURL, Eric Dubois (virologist at the EURL) opened the discussion with the NRLs on the next proficiency test and the development of a database on the dynamic of bee viruses across Europe. This first webinar lasted for one hour and gave rise to fruitful discussions. The presentation can be found here for the NRL network.