Xtranet-ISA

The urgency of the Xylella outbreak in Italy and the very high interest of the plant health scientific community to advance the current knowledge toward its control, led the Commission Services and EFSA to organise a second (follow-up) Workshop. This one and half day event will be web-streamed  and will take place in Brussels, from 12-13 November 2015.

The event also includes the presentation of the recently approved Horizon 2020 project Pest Organisms Threatening Europe (POnTE), related to X. fastidiosa, as well as the dedicated topic in the Sustainable Food Security 2016 call under Horizon 2020.  

The previous event "Xylella fastidiosa: Options for its control" was held at EXPO Milan on 15 July 2015.  Many plant species are reported as hosts of X. fastidiosa bacteria without expressing symptoms. In addition, in many host plants the development of symptoms can happen several months after infection. This makes early detection and surveys of X. fastidiosa difficult. To support detection and monitoring, there is a need to understand the epidemiology of X. fastidiosa in a given environment and develop appropriate sampling strategies. A report of the first workshop can be found here.

Background

Following the first outbreak of X. fastidiosa in  olive trees in the Union territory in October 2013, EU emergency measures have been put in place since February 2014 and reinforced in May 2015. The containment and eradication measures undertaken are based on the latest scientific information available worldwide, provided by EFSA in January 2015.  Given the high level of uncertainty, EFSA recommended also the intensification of research activities on a range of host plants affected, as well as epidemiology and control of the Xylella outbreak in Italy. Furthermore, the European Parliament approved a non-legislative resolution in May 2015 demanding actions to halt the spread of the Xylella outbreak, including stepping up funding for research, and increased international networking, as a matter of urgency .