OIE updates animal health statuses
The campaign includes a video calling on OIE member countries to respect the commitments they agreed to in a vote at the OIE in 2011 and warns about the accidental or deliberate release from laboratories still holding the virus. Rinderpest, or cattle plague, decimated hundreds of millions of cattle across Asia, Europe and Africa. The aim was to leave only a few samples in high-security laboratories for research or for vaccination in case the disease re-emerged.
The campaign was launched at the 81st General Session of the OIE this week, attended by over 700, representing organisations including the United Nations, World Health Organisation, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the European Commission.
The delegates updated a chapter of the OIE code on responsible use of antimicrobial agents in veterinary medicine in the 178 OIE member countries.
They added peste des petits ruminants and classical swine fever to the list of diseases for which member countries can apply for official recognition of their disease free status.
They also recognised Bulgaria and Costa Rica as having 'controlled risk' status with regard to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE); Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Slovenia and the United States of America were recognised as having a 'negligible BSE risk'. The official status of all the countries that already had an officially recognised status remains unchanged.
