Work packages leading:
WP6: African swine fever virus prevention and management

Dr Silvia Bellini

Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale della Lombardia e dell’Emilia Romagna
Staff Director

Email:

DEFEND role: Work Package leader for WP6

Silvia Bellini is a veterinarian with background in epidemiology surveillance, prevention and control of animal diseases and other veterinary matters.

She acquired this knowledge thanks to her formal university and post-graduate studies, during her work in Italy, during the period she spent at the European Commission (DGSANTE) and at the OIE, as member of SCAD Commission.

In Italy, she has always worked within the framework of the Italian reference laboratories.

In the period 2010-2014, she worked as seconded national expert at the European Commission (DGSANTE) where she was in charge of the dossiers on pig diseases, including African swine fever (ASF).

In 2014, during the Italian Presidency of the European Union, she followed, for the Italian Government, the Animal Health Law (AHL) proposal, a Council and Parliament Regulation, which will replace about 40 Directives and Regulations and create a coherent and overarching legal framework for the Union Animal Health policy. She provided technical assistance on sanitary matters in the drafting of the AHL proposal.

She has also followed all the technical discussions and negotiations with the EU Commission, the Council and the Member States in order to obtain Member States consensus on the technical aspects of the proposal and to produce an AHL text of compromise.

As expert of the CVET and GF TADs Team, she has participated in several expert missions on ASF in the Baltic countries, in Poland and in The Russian Federation.

Since 2015, she is member of the Scientific Commission Animal Diseases (SCAD) of the World Organization for Animal diseases (OIE) and since 2016, she is the Chair of the EC Task Force on ASF. She has worked in research projects, at national and international level.