Europe plans new foot-and-mouth law
12 December 2001
Europe plans new foot-and-mouth law
By Philip Clarke in Brussels
NEW European Union legislation to deal with future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth is to be tabled early next year.
Addressing 450 delegates at an international foot-and-mouth conference in Brussels, food safety commissioner David Byrne said new measures were essential.
“It is simply inconceivable that we could ever allow a repeat of the crisis that took place this year,” he said on Wednesday (12 December).
In particular, the new approach should exploit new tests that were emerging to differentiate between vaccinated and infected animals.
This would allow vaccination to become a more effective tool in combating foot-and-mouth, Mr Byrne said.
While there was no demand for a return to general prophylactic vaccination of all livestock, it could still be used as a ring-fence measure.
But for this to be viable, the tests would have to be fully validated and international rules agreed for the trade in meat from treated animals.
Dutch farm minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst agreed that existing foot-and-mouth policies should change.
“The slaughter of healthy animals led to public outrage in the Netherlands.”
Mr Brinkhorst suggested a system where animals on farms around an outbreak were all vaccinated, but not slaughtered.
Using new tests, meat from these animals should be let back on to local, EU and world markets, when it was shown no animals were carrying the virus.
Mr Byrne said the commissions new proposals will focus on improvements in livestock management.
“This will require improved identification and traceability and more restrictions on animal movements,” he warned.
More resources would also be put into stopping illegal imports of contaminated meat.
Foot-and-mouth – confirmed outbreaks |
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Foot-and-mouth – FWi coverage |
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Recovery plan – Full coverage |