Original: English February 2020 REPORT OF THE MEETING OF THE OIE AQUATIC ANIMAL HEALTH STANDARDS COMMISSION Paris, 19‒26 February 2020 ________ EU comment The EU would like to commend the OIE Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission for its work and for having taken into consideration EU comments on the Aquatic Code and Manual submitted previously. The EU notes the reply from the Aquatic Animals Commission to some of the previous EU comments and the justification why some of those comments have not been taken into consideration. The EU only has few specific comments on this report of the February 2020 meeting of the Aquatic Animals Commission (inserted in the text below) and in general supports the proposed changes to chapters and articles presented therein. The EU would like to stress again its continued commitment to participate in the work of the OIE and to offer all technical support needed by the Aquatic Animals Commission and its ad hoc groups for future work on the Aquatic Code and Manual. OIE •12, rue de Prony • 75017 Paris • France Tel.: 33 (0)1 44 15 18 88 • Fax: 33 (0)1 42 67 09 87 • www.oie.int • [email protected] 2 The COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary to review the arrangements for Members’ participation in international meetings, and in particular the 88th General Session of the World Assembly of Delegates of the OIE. In this context, the OIE Council held an extraordinary meeting on 6 March 2020, and decided in agreement with the Director General, that the OIE General Session for May 2020 would be restricted to Wednesday 27 May 2020 and be limited to the consideration of institutional matters (elections) and administrative matters (vote on the budget), so as to ensure the institutional functioning of the Organisation; and technical matters that require the approbation of the World Assembly on a regular annual basis, when that approbation is supported by mechanisms of technical and procedural oversight previously agreed by the World Assembly (Official Recognition of Status; Reference Centres; Register of Diagnostic Kits). As a consequence, no new or amended chapters in the Aquatic Animal Health Code, the Terrestrial Animal Health Code, the Manual of Diagnostic Tests for Aquatic Animals or the Manual of Diagnostic Tests and Vaccines for Terrestrial Animals will be proposed for adoption in 2020. Chapters that were to be proposed for adoption in 2020 will be proposed for adoption in May 2021. To ensure a consistent approach across all three Specialist Commissions presenting international standards to the World Assembly, the OIE has decided to take the following approach: 1. All relevant texts that were to be proposed for adoption in May 2020 will be circulated in the respective Specialist Commission’s February 2020 report noting that adoption has been postponed until May 2021, and that they will be open for one round of comments. 2. Only substantive comments that have not been submitted before will be considered. 3. The deadline for comments for relevant Aquatic Animals Commission Annexes is 10 July 2020. 4. Each Commission will consider such comments at its September 2020 or February 2021 meetings thereby spreading out this work and enabling them to progress other work items. 5. The texts (incorporating any revisions resulting from this process) will be included in the relevant Commission’s February 2021 reports, to be proposed for adoption in May 2021. 6. This process does not alter the regular process applying to other chapters being circulated for comments. OIE Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission/February 2020 3 The OIE Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission (Aquatic Animals Commission) met at OIE Headquarters in Paris from 19 to 26 February 2020. The list of participants is presented in Annex 1. The Aquatic Animals Commission thanked the following Members for providing written comments on draft texts for the OIE Aquatic Animal Health Code (hereinafter referred to as the Aquatic Code) and OIE Manual of Diagnostic Tests for Aquatic Animals (hereinafter referred to as the Aquatic Manual) circulated in the Commission’s September 2019 meeting report: Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, China (People’s Rep. of), Cuba, Ecuador, Japan, Korea (Rep. of), New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, Singapore, Thailand, the United States of America (the USA), the Member States of European Union (EU) and the African Union Interafrican Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) on behalf of African Member Countries of the OIE. The Commission considered all comments that were submitted on time and were supported by a rationale. The Commission made amendments to draft texts, where relevant, in the usual manner by ‘double underline’ and ‘strikethrough’. In the Annexes, amendments proposed at this meeting are highlighted with a coloured background in order to distinguish them from those made previously. The Commission did not consider comments where a rationale had not been provided or that were difficult to interpret. The Commission encourages Members to consider relevant information in previous Commission and ad hoc Group reports when preparing comments, especially on longstanding issues. These reports are available on the OIE Website. The Table of Contents below lists the meeting agenda items and provides links to the items. Members should note that texts in Annexes 2 to 7 and 11 to 14 that were to be proposed for adoption in May 2020, will be proposed for adoption in May 2021 and are open for an additional round of comments. As these texts have already undergone extensive consultation, Members are requested to only submit comments to address substantive issues that have not been considered previously. Annexes 8 to 9 and 15 to 16 are presented for Member comments. Annex 10 is presented for Member information. Comments on Annexes 2 to 16 of this report must reach OIE Headquarters by the 10 July 2020 to be considered at the September 2020 meeting of the Aquatic Animals Commission. Comments received after this due date will not be submitted to the Commission for its consideration. All comments should be sent to the OIE Standards Department at: [email protected]. Comments should be submitted as Word files rather than pdf files because pdf files are difficult to incorporate into the Commission’s working documents. Comments should be presented in the relevant Annex, and include new proposed text, supported by a structured rationale or by published scientific references. Proposed deletions should be indicated in ‘strikethrough’ and proposed additions with ‘double underline’. Members should not use the automatic ‘track-changes’ function provided by Word processing software, as such changes are lost in the process of collating Members’ submissions into the Aquatic Animals Commission’s working documents. Members are also requested not to reproduce the full text of a chapter as this makes it easy to miss comments while preparing the working documents. The Aquatic Animals Commission strongly encourages Members to participate in the development of the OIE’s international standards by submitting comments on this report and participate in the process of adoption at the General Session. Table of Contents 1. WELCOME FROM THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL....................................................................... 4 2. ADOPTED AGENDA ......................................................................................................................................... 4 3. MEETING WITH THE DIRECTOR GENERAL ........................................................................................... 4 4. COOPERATION WITH OTHER SPECIALIST COMMISSIONS ............................................................... 5 OIE Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission/February 2020 4 5. OIE AQUATIC ANIMAL HEALTH STRATEGY .......................................................................................... 5 6. WORK PLAN OF THE AQUATIC ANIMALS COMMISSION ................................................................... 5 7. OIE AQUATIC ANIMAL HEALTH CODE ....................................................................................................... 6 7.1. Texts to be proposed for adoption in May 2021 ................................................................................. 6 7.1.1. New draft chapter on Biosecurity for aquaculture establishments (Chapter 4.X.) ...................... 6 7.1.2. Listing of infection with decapod iridescent virus 1 (DIV1) ‒– Revised Article 1.3.3. of Chapter 1.3. ............................................................................................................................ 11 7.1.3. Model Article 10.X.13. for the fish disease-specific Chapters 10.5, 10.6. and 10.10. (and Article 10.4.17. for Chapter 10.4.) ..................................................................................... 11 7.1.4. Article 10.9.2. of Chapter 10.9. Infection with spring viraemia of carp virus ............................ 12 7.1.5. Article 10.10.2. of Chapter 10.10. Infection with viral haemorrhagic septicaemia virus ........... 13 7.1.6. Glossary definitions for ‘Aquatic animal waste’ and ‘aquatic animal products’ ........................ 14 7.2. Texts for Member comments ............................................................................................................. 15 7.2.1. Revised Glossary definition for ‘vector’ .................................................................................... 15 7.2.2. Approaches for determining periods