The participants reviewed the FMD situation and FMD laboratory diagnostic capacity in East Africa. Training priorities for laboratory diagnostics and approaches to sustain the network were agreed.

The meeting was supported by the OIE Laboratory Twinning Project on FMD between the World Reference Laboratory for FMD (WRLFMD), the Pirbright Institute (United Kingdom), and the National Animal Health Diagnostic and Investigation Center (NAHDIC), Ethiopia.

Representatives were present from the FMD laboratories of seven East African countries, as well as from WRLFMD, the Ethiopian Ministry of Livestock and Fishery, the European Commission for the Control of FMD (EuFMD), the Ethiopian National Veterinary Institute (NVI), the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and the Pan-African Veterinary Vaccine Centre (PANVAC).