A New Online Resource to Monitor New or Emerging Plant Pests: MEDISYS Media Monitoring and the Case of Xylella fastidiosa.

The European Food Safety Authority has established a horizon scanning exercise for plant pests by automated monitoring of open-source media. The news sources are screened using the publicly accessible MEDISYS (Medical Information System) platform of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Here, we report the example of monitoring for Xylella fastidiosa, a highly polyphagous plant-pathogenic bacterium. Since its first occurrence in Europe, news sources have reported findings and latest developments. Media monitoring-related data can support surveillance or plant pests' management programs by early warning and can help understand the impacts of plant pests and the societal response to new plant health threats

Horizon scanning for plant health threats: 7 years of support to EU risk managers

<p>EFSA has been mandated by the European Commission in 2016 to carry out a horizon scanning exercise of plant health threats to the European Union territory in order to support risk managers to address these potential new risks.</p><p>The scope of this activity is to identify new outbreaks of pests and diseases in and outside the EU, new host plants, new vectors, control measures or new pest species.</p><p>EU; pdf; [email protected]</p&gt

Xylella fastidiosa: A european threat under close surveillance on the Medisys platform

<p>In cooperation with the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, that has developed the Medisys public health surveillance system, EFSA screens media and scientific literature daily and publishes newsletters monthly since 2017, highlighting worldwide emerging threats of interest to the European Union due to plant pests. Out of the 2,500 monitored pests on Medisys, <i>Xylella fastidiosa</i> is the most cited species of both scientific and media sources. </p><p>EU; pdf; [email protected]</p&gt