Topic: 2024-Spread of Animal Viruses
Country: Philippines
Delegate Name: Bobby Young
The spread of animal viruses has been a large concern for Filipino farmers for years now. The spread of zoonotic and non-zoonotic viruses like African Swine Fever (ASF), Echinostomiasis, Clonorchiasis, and many others have been plaguing our nation’s pork industry for about 5 years now (Fernandez-Colorado et al., 2024). The virus does not affect human health but it still has a very negative effect on our nation’s agricultural industry. The disease is able to stick to boots, clothes, wheels, and other farming materials that can easily make their way onto our farms and infect and kill our pig population.
It is the Filipino belief that together we can improve the WHO’s efforts to prevent the spread of ASF by recommending stronger guidelines for transportation of animal products. The Philippines hopes for this committee to pass a strong resolution that strongly recommends governments to make stronger regulations on the cleanliness of the conditions of transporting animal products as well as products that will be used around animals to ensure that we prevent diseases from reaching the animals and so that we can prevent people from receiving infected products from the animals. The Philippines would also like to call on this committee to collaborate and make a resolution that calls for governments to further research into the development of vaccinations to limit the damages of a potential outbreak of these viruses in the case this were to happen, as well as a resolution that calls for the testing and monitoring of animals health on farms in areas vulnerable to these viruses to ensure that these diseases do not spread further past the farms. And finally, we hope that this committee can form a resolution that equally supports developing nations’ prevention of these diseases as these zoonotic diseases saw a 63% increase in African countries that have less developed systems and resources to prevent the global spread of these viruses in the year 2022 (From Africa Renewal: July 2022, 14 July 2022 By: WHO).
Works Cited:
https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/july-2022/africa-63-jump-diseases-spread-animals-people-seen-last-decade
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1822878/#:~:text=A%20number%20of%20food%2Dborne,diphyllobothriosis%2Fspirometrosis%20and%20sparganosis%2C%20intestinal
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/zoonoses
https://www.woah.org/en/disease/african-swine-fever/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11200829/
