April 2, 2020
A new National List of Reportable Animal Diseases is being proposed by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to further strengthen the country’s ability to detect, respond to and control animal diseases. The new list will provide a consolidated, comprehensive set of guidelines to ensure federal and state animal health officials quickly receive information about potential cases of communicable animal diseases. This helps ensure that serious diseases are reported earlier, which can help speed response time and lessen the overall impact on producers and the economy.
What does the list do?
The proposed list spells out exactly which animal diseases need to be reported to federal and state officials, how quickly they need to be reported, who needs to report them, and to whom they need to report them.
This list will have sections for notifiable diseases/conditions as well as monitored diseases.
This proposal does not include the reporting of notifiable diseases in wildlife. However, APHIS welcomes public comment regarding how the occurrence of notifiable diseases in wildlife should best be addressed within the NLRAD, especially when reservoirs of a notifiable disease are determined to exist in wildlife within a state.
Define notifiable diseases and monitored diseases.
Notifiable diseases include foreign animal diseases, newly identified diseases and some serious endemic (found in the U.S.) diseases. Monitored diseases include endemic diseases of interest.
What happens if a disease on the list is identified?
Diseases on the notifiable list must be reported immediately to both state and federal officials. This ensures timely response actions can be taken. Monitored diseases would be reported through periodic summary reports.
Who is required to report the diseases?
The proposed rule expands the list of people required to report these diseases beyond just veterinarians and laboratories to include other animal health professionals who may encounter them, including veterinary medical professionals, diagnostic laboratorians, biomedical researchers, public health officials, animal health officials, trained technicians, zoo personnel, and wildlife personnel.
What's next?
APHIS is seeking public comment on this proposed rule for 60 days following publication in the Federal Register. All comments will be considered before moving forward.
Source: USDA APHIS, which is solely responsible for the information provided and is wholly owned by the source. Informa Business Media and all its subsidiaries are not responsible for any of the content contained in this information asset.
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