January 2010

The Q-fever epidemic in the Netherlands seems to be unique in the world. Never before have so many people become ill with this disease. What is the reason? The experts are still looking for an answer, although to many it is clear that the expansion of the dairy goat industry in a period of 10 years (from '99 to '09) is mainly the cause of the enormous quantities of bacteria spread throughout the country.

With the past two dry summers, the bacteria were easily blown through the air and inhaled by thousands of people. Most of whom did not get any symptoms at all, some got ill, a few seriously ill and 6 people (already weakened by other ailments) died.

Q-fever has always been in the environment all around the world. From time to time small outbreaks among humans occur, but usually do not last long. Goats (and sheep) can carry the infection without any symptoms, other than abortion when pregnant. Infected pregnant animals shed billions of bacteria during an abortion but also during a full-borne partus. So the real danger lies with the pregnant animals.
That is why now that the situation has grown serious, after 3 years with a growing number of patients, the government has decided to kill all pregnant animals at contaminated farms.

To read more detailed information go to the Q-fever section on this site and also see the excellent site of Warmwell.com

11 November '09

On 10 Novenber '09 AWSELVA (Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law Veterinary Association) organised a conference on 'The Impact of Policy Changes on Animal Welfare'.
Two ELA (European Livestock Association) members, Sheila Crispin, ophthalmology professor, and Christine Bijl, ELA Secretary, were present.

Read the report_awselva_meeting_nov09 

30 March '09

More organisations, like NBvH and ELA, are working together to tackle the various existing and emerging animal diseases. In the UK all horse organisations and some scientists are working together with Defra to create the UK contingency plan for African Horse Sickness. The work group also invited two ELA members to present their views.
For the latest news on AHS read more at Diseases.

27 April '09

A virus circulating in Mexico and the USA and involving person to person transmission appears to cause in some cases severe affections in certain people infected by this virus. There is no evidence that this virus is transmitted by food.
It is not a classical human influenza virus called seasonal influenza, which causes every year millions of human cases of influenza worldwide but a virus which includes in its characteristics swine, avian and human virus components.

NBvH (Dutch Hobby and small-scale holders Association) insists on extra measures against animal transports

Now that BTV 1 is imported into the Netherlands it is clear that extra measures are urgently needed. Measures already taken against importing animal diseases are apparently insufficient. The inspection authorities are always one step behind or cannot get a grip on the complicated networks of trade contacts and transport movements. NBvH therefore urges the Ministry of Agriculture (LNV) and Parliament to step in.

10 April '08

Read the ELA-letter to EU Council and Commission regarding preventive_btvaccination

Brussels, 01-04-2008

VVD (Dutch Liberal Party): Vaccination must be a bigger part of the European animal disease policies - A series of proposals by MEP Jan Mulder has been accepted

The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture has presented its concept BT vaccination plan to the Commission on 15 January 2008.

It contains the following principles:

• - Vaccination is voluntary
• - Holders are strongly advised to vaccinate susceptible animals
• - Susceptible wild animals (no ear tags) are not vaccinated
• - Vaccination will be administered by vets.
• - Purpose of the vaccination strategy is to have 80% coverage for the susceptible kept animals.

The vaccination plan is based on 100% European co-financing for vaccines and 50% of the administration costs. The European Commission has announced to fix the reimbursement amounts of co-financing per animal. The announced Commission plan is very disappointing to the Netherlands; especially the amount for administration is way under the initially promised 50%.

Minister Verburg will speak about these numbers in the Council meeting on Monday (18 January) in order to make the Commission keep its promise.

In case of a significant difference in the final amounts, some points in the plan may have to be adjusted.

Summary
On the basis of the experience gained, and considering the new EU legislation as regards bluetongue, this conference had been organized, because the Commission thought it to be appropriate to discuss at Community level the strategy for the use of vaccination against bluetongue as a means of controlling the disease, taking also into account its importance vis-à-vis trade and the economical effects of the disease.

General opinion was that vaccination would be the only solution to tackle the BT-explosion. The Commission working groups (for reports see at the bottom of the conference website) concluded that mandatory vaccination would be preferable.

The BT-experience in the southern Member States showed that vaccination needs a minimum of 80% coverage and a follow up of monitoring and surveillance to be effective. Eradication of serotypes 2 and 4 is a fact. 

Main questions were:

• - Will vaccination be voluntary or mandatory?
• - Should the Commission take a more leading role in the decisions and not leave it to MSs to decide?
• - How will the vaccine be distributed? Will countries that ordered with the manufacturers first come first?
• - Will animals which were infected in previous years be vaccinated or not?
• - Will animals in the protection zones be vaccinated first or animals in the surveillance zones?
• - Can animals in the free regions be vaccinated?
• - Will we be too late in 2008 to stop a new explosion? Orders should have been made months ago.

The Commission has announced co-financing the vaccination campaign, provided that 80% coverage will be achieved in the MS. Are they pressuring MSs this way after all?

All MSs have to send in their vaccination strategies before 31 January for the Commission to evaluate what next steps must be taken.

17 and 18 October '07

A prestigious conference at the European Parliament in Brussels on the new Strategy Animal Health for the EU was held on 17 October.
Following the EP conference, an evening meeting, organised by ELA and titled "Towards a Durable Global Animal Health Policy" gave opportunity to discuss the possibilities of ELA as a permanent platform where policy makers and various stakeholders, such as farmers, scientists, veterinarians and other interested parties could freely communicate, especially outside times of crisis to exchange scientific knowledge and professional experiences in advance of disease outbreaks and other issues commensurate with ELA's aims. Among the speakers at this meeting were RBST CEO Richard Clarke (presentation_clarke) and Dr. Paul Sutmoller (scientists_and_veterinarians), virologist and international consultant. The evening was led by Peter King, Chair of ELA.

The following day a workshop was to take place organised by the EU funded FMD & CSF Coordination Action, organised by ELA member and CA participant Mary Marshall.

The three events would complement each other and participants were encouraged to attend the full 2-day programme. Click here for report_brussels_conference (because the presentation of Roger Breeze is not available click breeze for the summary of his presentation).

8 August '07

Krista van Velzen, Dutch MP for the Socialist Party, always in the frontlines when it comes to animal welfare, has asked for a change in the EU non-vaccination policy.

See the article.

20 April '07

When in an area with high density animal production an outbreak occurs, culling nor emergency vaccination will help. The disease will go faster than the cullers can work or the vaccination can be effective.

Therefore the only alternative should be preventive vaccination.

Thus show the research results by Wageningen University, Holland.

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/21812/ (Apologies for the nonsense ads on this page)

A review to be published shortly in the British Ornithologists' Union's journal "Ibis", critically examines the arguments concerning the role of migratory birds in the global dispersal of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1.

........conclude that human commercial activities, particularly those associated with poultry, are the major factors that have determined its global dispersal.
The full article on Ibis Online

14 March

A new report by GRAIN shows how bird flu is being used to advance the
interests of powerful agribusiness corporations.