Biosurveillance Network of the Silk Road (BNSR) Annual Meeting

25 Sep 2019 - 27 Sep 2019

The Biosurveillance Network of the Silk Road (BNSR) held its 6th Annual Plenary Meeting in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, on 25-27 September 2019.
The BNSR is a non-governmental organization that is dedicated to support the creation of a well-functioning disease surveillance network in Eastern Europe/ South Caucasus and Central Asia. In so doing, BNSR contributes to strengthening human and animal health security not only nationally but also within the region and therefore globally. The BNSR is comprised of biosafety and biosecurity experts from Executive Committee Member countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, as well as from Observer countries such as: Armenia, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania, and Uzbekistan.
As a chair of the BNSR for 2019-2020, Kazakhstan hosted 2019 BNSR Annual Meeting dedicated to the purpose of strengthening approaches, which are the basis for effective preparedness to prevent, respond and recover from communicable disease threats.
The purpose of the BNSR Annual Meetings is to provide a sustainable forum for participants to share information regarding national and regional biosurveillance activities, to include disease detection, laboratory diagnosis, epidemiological analysis, disease reporting, and intersectoral communication and collaboration. The primary focus of this year’s meeting was One Health approach, BNSR sustainment and expanding multidisciplinary collaboration within the Network.
At the 2019 BNSR Meeting the delegations from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Belarus, Bulgaria, Romania and the USA took part along with the experts from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), British Medical Journal (BMJ), Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU), Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), INTERPOL, University of Zurich, PubMed, The World Health Organization (WHO), Southeast European Center for Surveillance and Control of Infectious Diseases (SECIDS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States European Command (USEUCOM), World Health Organization (WHO).
The STCU supported the Annual BNSR Plenary Meeting as a benefactor and Dr. Vlada Pashynska, STCU Senior Specialist in Bio area, took part in the event to share the STCU experience in implementation of the biosurveillance and biosafety&biosecurity related projects in the STCU Recipient countries.