Presentation title: Swedish surveillance- and control strategies during the COVID-19 epidemic

Dr. Anders Tegnell is the former State Epidemiologist of Sweden, and the Head of the Department of Public Health Analysis and Data Management at the Public Health Agency. He is a medical doctor with a PhD in infectious diseases and a Master in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Tegnell has extensive experience of leading different Swedish government agencies at different levels in the field of public health, disease control and preparedness for health threats, and has also experience from international work, for example from Laos in 1990-1993 (WHO) and from DRC during the Ebola outbreak in 1995. 

Presentation title: 25+ years of cross-sector surveillance in practice - DANMAP - the One Health experience (Joint presentation with Ute W. Sønksen)

DVM, PhD, Senior Academic Officer at the Division for Risk Assessment and Nutrition, National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark. Since 1999, she has worked with different aspects of monitoring and surveillance of zoonoses including the national control programmes for Salmonella and Campylobacter. Since 2011, she has worked with the Danish integrated Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring and Research Programme (DANMAP). She is project leader on the DANMAP report for the parts concerning antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance in animals and food, as well as author of the chapter on antimicrobial use in animals and co-editor of the report. In her work, she has focus on data quality and assurance, multisectorial collaboration and communication of results to different audiences. She is driven by the belief that the best One Health solutions are reached through collection of good data, extensive collaboration between human and veterinary medicine, authorities and industry and through efficient communication of results. 

Presentation title: Translating surveillance outcomes into policy - dealing with the uncertainty

Dr Gregorio Torres is Head of the Science Department of the Word Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), based in Paris. He oversees the OIE’s science system arising from the development and review of international standards on animal health and global animal disease control programmes. 

Gregorio supervises the technical secretariat of the OIE Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases and Biological Standards Commission, being also actively involved in a range of activities that address swine diseases, including African swine fever. He is a member of the FAO-OIE foot and mouth disease (FMD) working group for the implementation of the FMD Global Control Strategy, and serves as the OIE Focal Point for the Global elimination of dog-mediated rabies under the auspices of the WHO/OIE//FAO Tripartite Secretariat.

Gregorio obtained his veterinary degree in Cordoba University (Spain) and continued his postgraduate education in the Universities of Glasgow and London where he specialised in veterinary epidemiology. After some years working as a large animal practitioner in the UK, he joined the Spanish Veterinary Services where he worked for the Epidemiology Department and was involved in the design and management of official disease control programmes with regular participation in technical working groups and field missions at the national and international levels. In 2013, he was commissioned to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as an Animal Health Officer with special focus on FMD. Since 2014 he has worked for the OIE. 

Presentation title: Welcome speech

Charlotte Vilstrup is the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) of Denmark. She was appointed in 2022 after several Chief roles within Animal Health and Food Safety in the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. She has a wide background in animal health policy. She also has a profound understanding of the importance and limitations of the scientific evidence base in policy-making, and extensive experience in both applying and commissioning science to guide policy in animal health.

Presentation title: Danish surveillance- and control strategies during the COVID-19 epidemic

Henrik Ullum has been the CEO of Statens Serum Institut (DK) since December 2020. The goal of Statens Serum Institut is to strengthen health through disease control and research. Statens Serum Institut handles several key emergency preparedness tasks, including prevention and control of infections, biological threats and congenital diseases. At the same time, Statens Serum Institut is one of Denmark’s largest research institutions in health, and research is a priority for all of the core areas of Statens Serum Institut.

CEO Ullum graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Copenhagen in 1994 and obtained a PhD in the same place in 1998. CEO Ullum trained as a specialist in clinical immunology in 2004. From 2006-2020  he was Chief Physician at the Department of Clinical Immunology, Rigshospitalet, as well as Professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, University of Copenhagen from 2014-2020. CEO Ullum was Chair of the Organization of Danish Medical Societies (LVS) from 2015-2020. Through this, he was member of the national Danish advisory board for personalized medicine, board member of Program for Clinical Research Infrastructure (PROCRIN), member of Strategic Alliance for Register and Health data (STARS), and board member of The Danish Medical Association Research Fund. CEO Ullum organized through LVS a series of Danish national meetings in 2016 on personalized medicine, which fed into the formulation of the Danish national strategy for personalized medicine.

Presentation title: African swine fever - Putting up a wild boar fence between Germany and Denmark

Present occupation: Employed at the Danish Agriculture & Food Council (2010 - )

Director for Food & Veterinary Issues, Chief Veterinarian

Former occupation:

• Head of International Trade Division, Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (2007-2010) (government official)
• Head of Food Department, Danish Meat Association (2004-2007) (private organization)
• Senior Veterinary Officer, Meat inspection, Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (2000-2004) (government official)
• Veterinary Officer, Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (1997-2000) (government official)
• Amanuensis at University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Veterinary and Food Microbiology (1995-1997)
• Inspector at the common municipal food control unit, Copenhagen West, (1993-1995)

Fields of responsibility:

• Zoonosis incl. surveillance-plans
• Risk-assessments and evaluations
• National and international animal health policy
• Animal welfare policy
• AMR
• Contingency plans and preparedness regarding OIE listed infectious animal diseases
• Food safety policy
• Advice to businesses concerning meat inspection, food-legislation, HACCP
• Inspections from importing countries authorities (e.g. China, USA, Russia, Japan)
• Export related issues, including negotiations with third countries authorities (on location) on animal health and food safety requirements and veterinary health certificates.

Presentation title: Reflecting on ICAHS4:What can we gain by expanding our approaches to Animal Health Surveillance?

Professor in Veterinary Preventive Medicine at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

Head of the Copenhagen Cattle Research Center (www.cphcattle.ku.dk), and Course Leader of the annual One Health International Summer Course in Copenhagen, Denmark. Liza Rosenbaum Nielsen conducts research, teaching, supervision, scientific advisory consultancy, project leadership and research evaluation within epidemiology, risk assessment, surveillance and control of infectious animal diseases and zoonoses. She was involved in the development of the evaluation framework and tools generated by the Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH). She works with surveillance, systems thinking and sustainability of animal-based food production systems in her current research projects.

Presentation title: Big challenges with using Big data for animal health surveillance

Peter Durr has worked as a veterinary epidemiologist for the past 20 years, initially at the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (Weybridge) in the UK, and since 2006 with the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) based in Geelong, Victoria. At AAHL, his work has mostly been on the epidemiology of Transboundary animal diseases, particularly highly pathogenic avian influenza, bluetongue, foot and mouth disease and Newcastle disease. He has a specialist interest in the application of molecular data to animal health surveillance, as well as the use of Big data approaches integrating disparate datasets through web-based applications. 

Presentation title: Connecting surveillance data with people

Petra completed her veterinary degree at University of Munich in Germany and soon after graduating discovered her passion for epidemiology and all things population health. As postgraduate she completed a MSc in Medical Epidemiology at the School of Public Heath in Bielefeld (Germany) and a Dr. med. vet. in Veterinary Epidemiology at the University of Bern (Switzerland) before moving to New Zealand to embark on a PhD at Massey University. Petra now calls New Zealand home and since 2009 is Director of EPI-interactive, where she and her team provide consultancy as well as interdisciplinary IT and data visualisation services to clients in the One Health domain. Before making the leap to work for herself she has held senior positions both at the EpiCentre, Massey University, and the New Zealand Food Safety Authority, and was the Editor-in-Chief of the New Zealand Veterinary Journal. Petra holds adjunct academic positions at Massey University’s School of Veterinary Science (New Zealand) and the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) of the University of Minnesota (USA). In an increasingly complex world Petra’s work drives to connect data and information with people by augmenting epidemiology with user experience design, new media and information technologies. 

Presentation title: 25+ years of cross-sector surveillance in practice - DANMAP - the One Health experience (Joint presentation with Birgitte Borck Høg)

Ute Wolff Sönksen, MD, Specialist in Clinical Microbiology, Senior Medical Officer, Reference Laboratory of Antibiotic Resistance, Statens Serum Institut. Ute has worked with bacterial taxonomy and phenotypic resistance testing since 2005 and did her specialization as a clinical microbiologist working with resistance testing of Grampositive and fastidious Gramnegatives evaluating the semi-automated system Vitek 2 (BioMerrieux).

Since 2008 she has worked with different aspects regarding principles and application of antibiotic stewardship at Danish hospitals, and particularly in surveillance as an important contributor to informed decision making in the treatment of patients.

Since 2015 she is co-editor of the DANMAP report, being responsible for the part concerning the monitoring of human antimicrobial consumption and surveillance of antimicrobial resistance in human clinical isolates. Her special interest is use of antimicrobials and the human-animal interface and collaboration regarding use.

She has participated in several cross-sectoral collaborations in a One Health AMR aspect, is member of the National Antibiotic Council and the Nordic Expert group in questions regarding AMR. She is also the European focal point for antibiotic resistance and antibiotic consumption in humans.