Report of the Round-Table Discussion: Moving Forward through Lessons Learned on Response Actions to Aquatic Animal Disease Emergencies, Rome, 16–18 December 2019

This report presents the results of a Round-table discussion: moving forward through lessons learned on response actions to aquatic animal disease emergencies organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in collaboration with the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) under the auspices of the project GCP/GLO/979/NOR: “Improving Biosecurity Governance and Legal Framework for Efficient and Sustainable Aquaculture Production” that was held from 16–18 December 2019 at the FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy. The meeting was attended by 43 experts from 22 countries, representing governance authorities, intergovernmental organizations, academia, research institutions and the private sector. Twenty presentations were delivered, namely: (1) National Competent Authority: role and experiences; (2) Inter-governmental organization: role and activities/experiences related to investigating specific mass mortalities of aquatic animals; (3) Producer and research/academic sectors: role and activities/experiences related to investigating specific mass mortalities of aquatic animalsand (4) Global Burden of Animal Diseases (GBAD).The meeting successfully achieved its objective of taking stock and sharing experiences and lessons learned which were used for generating recommendations for the further development and improvement of the draft FAO Decision-tree for dealing with aquatic animal mortality events and supporting guidance. The meeting generated an annotated table of contents for this decision-tree document with the following major sections, namely: Introduction; Phases in an Emergency; Elements of an Emergency Response (Preparedness Phase, Response Phase, Recovery Phase); Decision-tree for Mass Mortality Events; Conducting Field Investigation; Tools and Guidance; and Case Study Examples. It is expected that this document will be made available in 2021.