Foot and Mouth Disease

HL Deb 11 March 2002 vol 632 cc51-2WA

The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many of the local disease control centres conducted disease awareness campaigns or disease preparedness exercises as laid down in Article 5.5 of the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plans for Great Britain, last revised in July 2000, prior to February 2001; and what are the current arrangements. [HL3032]

Lord Whitty

The department regularly holds emergency exercises involving notifiable animal diseases which may involve liaison with the police and other enforcement bodies. Such exercises are generally authorised and supervised by the divisional veterinary manager or regionally by a head of veterinary service.

Detailed information on the number of emergency exercises specifically related to foot and mouth disease is not held centrally and can only be collected at disproportionate cost. However, between 1994 and 1999 MAFF carried out 84 separate exercises aimed at planning to control notifiable animal diseases.

The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether all local and national disease control centres were aware of the drawing rights for vaccines that had been laid down in Article 10.1 of the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plans for Great Britain, last revised in July 2000. [HL3033]

Lord Whitty

The National Disease Control Centre was aware of the drawing rights for vaccines under Article 10.1 of the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) Contingency Plans which gave us access to antigen sufficient for 500,000 doses of vaccine for each of a number of FMD strains. Indeed, these drawing rights were used and the relevant antigen was formulated as a contingency measure during the 2001 outbreak.

In the event of a decision to vaccinate, the National Disease Control Centre would have responsibility for the procurement and distribution of vaccine, so the local disease control centres do not need to be aware of the drawing rights.

The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many members of the State Veterinary Service and local disease control centre staff had undergone training to enable them to deal with a possible outbreak of foot and mouth disease prior to February 2001; how many had undertaken refresher training courses as laid down in the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plans for Great Britain, last revised in July 2000; how frequently refresher courses were conducted; and what are the current arrangements for training in this field. [HL3034]

Lord Whitty

Veterinary officers of the State Veterinary Service attend an initial veterinary officer training course which incorporates one day's training on foot and mouth disease and other exotic diseases. Training includes a visit to the Pirbright Laboratory. Refresher training is provided by line managers. Training in the form of contingency planning exercises takes place at least once a year at animal health offices. Staff also receivead-hoc training on an ongoing basis on a range of disease control work (e.g. training on computer systems). The training arrangements for dealing with BMD outbreaks remain in place, although SVS managers are already reviewing their local training requirements.

The Countess of Mar

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether, prior to February 2001, all the stipulated livestock keepers had received adequate and regular advice from members of the State Veterinary Service on statutory disease control procedures; whether they were kept aware of national and international animal disease risks as laid down in Article 12.4 of the Foot and Mouth Disease Contingency Plans for Great Britain, last revised in July 2000; and what are the current arrangements for keeping these livestock keepers informed. [HL3035]

Lord Whitty

The regime of visits and inspections described in the contingency plan ensures that the State Veterinary Service comes into contact with many livestock farmers. However, livestock farmers closest contact is with local veterinary inspectors, who are private veterinary surgeons approved by my department to undertake certain official duties.

There is currently no system in place for monitoring the delivery or effectiveness of animal disease control information to farmers. This is something that we will wish to consider as part of the department's lessons learned exercise.