[en] Banana is a perennial herbaceous plant and is important for food security, feeding millions of small holders, and as a cash crop in many developing countries. Preserving the biodiversity of Musa species is a key issue to address current and future challenges caused by abiotic or biotic stresses, among which the viral pathogens. The most comprehensive repository of Musa genetic resources in the world is managed by Bioversity International at the KULeuven, Belgium. These resources are distributed around the world and it is therefore of utmost importance to guarantee the clean health status of the plants. Some viral pathogens, like banana bunchy top virus, banana mild mosaic virus or banana streak virus have an important impact on the banana production. Therefore, the indexing and sanitation program established at the Germplasm Health Unit (GHU) at GxABT (ULiege), is screening and treating the plants from the Genebank collection held by Bioversity International. It consists of detecting the presence of infecting viruses in the plant material, and to further perform virus-cleaning therapies to eradicate the virus(es), putting back viral-free banana accessions for a safe and sustained worldwide distribution. More than 260 banana accessions entered the therapy programs, 52% of them were already send back virus-free to the Genebank, and 31% are ongoing. The protocols used, their performance as well as their adaptation to the genetic diversity of Musa will be presented and discussed.
