Early warning at the national level could be described as having advance knowledge of high-risk diseases likely to threaten national biosecurity before the pathogens actually enter national territory. Effective early warning depends strongly on the responsible authority having excellent awareness of the current disease situation of the country’s primary trading partners and on emerging aquatic animal diseases on a world-wide basis. Early warning thus involves such activities as:
As an example, Indonesia and Japan could have had early warning of the potential threat posed by koi herpesvirus if their Responsible Authorities had been carefully monitoring and analyzing reports of scientific meetings and recent articles appearing in scientific journals. In turn, because Japan and Indonesia provided trading partners with fairly rapid notification, via reporting to the OIE and through presentations given at scientific meetings, that a serious disease outbreak was occurring in their koi and common carp, their trading partners have had a good opportunity for early warning and the chance to take appropriate biosecurity measures to protect their carp and koi culture industries.
