Report of the thirteenth meeting of the Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health, 22-23 November 2014

The Asia Regional Advisory Group on Aquatic Animal Health meets annually to discuss regional disease issues including emerging disease threats. This is the report of the seventh meeting, held 22-23 November 2014 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The report discusses emerging disease problems and regional response including to:

• Finfish diseases: Streptococcus agalactiae, Francisella sp., Tenacibaculum sp., S. iniae, mycobacteria and Vibrio spp., Aeromonas hydrophila, viral nervous necrosis.
• Crustacean diseases: Whitespot syndrome virus, yellowhead virus type-1 and type-8, covert mortality nodavirus, infectious myonecrosis virus, taura syndrome virus, infectious hypodermal and haematopoietic necrosis virus, abdominal segment deformity disease, Laem-Singh virus, hepatopancreatic parvovirus, monodon baculovirus, acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Enterocytozoon hepatopenaei.
• Mollusc and amphibian diseases: A summary of recent mollusc disease events was presented in tabular format.

Other issues discussed included:

• Progress of NACA's Aquatic Animal Health Programme.
• Outcomes of the OIE General Session and Aquatic Animal Health Standards Commission meetings, 2014.
• Disease reporting, including changes to the OIE list of notifiable diseases and establishment of a global online reporting system (WAHIS) by OIE.
• Review of the Quarterly Aquatic Animal Disease Reporting System.
• Progress in implementation of the the Regional Technical Guidelines on Health management for the Responsible Movement of Live Aquatic Animals.
• Identification and designation of regional aquatic animal health resources, including experts, centres and reference laboratories.
• Regional and international cooperation.