| dc.description.abstract | Animal disease emergencies: their nature and potential
consequences
Animal disease emergencies may occur when there are unexpected outbreaks of epidemic diseases or other animal
health related events which have the potential to cause serious socio-economic consequences for a couniry.
These emergencies are frequently caused by outbreaks of transboundary animal diseases (TADs), which are of
significant economic, trade and/or food security importance for many countries. Such diseases can spread easily and
reach epidemic proportions; control/management, including exclusion, requires cooperation among several
countries.
The occurrence of one of these diseases may have disastrous consequences for a country when they:
• compromise food security through serious loss of animal protein and/or loss of draught animal power for cropping;
• cause major production losses for livestock products such as meat, milk and other dairy products, wool and other
fibres, and skins and hides;
• cause losses of valuable livestock of high genetic potential. They may also restrict opportunities for upgrading the
production potential of local livestock industries by making it difficult to import exotic high-producing breeds that
are extremely susceptible to TADs;
• add significantly to the cost of livestock production since costly disease control measures need to be applied;
• seriously disrupt or inhibit trade in livestock, gerrnplasm, and livestock products, either within a country or
internationally. Their occurrence may thus cause major losses in national export income in significant livestockproducing
countries;
• inhibit sustained investment in livestock production, thus trapping livestock producers in uneconomic, peasant-type
agriculture;
• cause public health consequences where diseases can be transmitted to humans (i.e. zoonoses);
• cause environmental consequences when wildlife populations die out; and
• cause unnecessary pain and suffering to many animals.
The International Office of Epizootics (OIE) recognizes 15 List A diseases, most of which could also be regarded as
being TADs. These are foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), rinderpest, peste des petits ruminants (PPR), contagious
bovine pleuropneumonia (CBPP), Rift Valley fever (RVF), lumpy skin disease, vesicular stomatitis, swine vesicular
disease, bluetongue, sheep and goat pox, African horsesickness, African swine fever, hog cholera (classical swine
fever), fowl plague and Newcastle disease. Examples of the serious consequences that these and other diseases have
had internationally are shown in the Box. However, this list is not exclusive. Other viral, bacterial, rickettsial and
mycoplasmal diseases may also be regarded as having the potential to cause animal disease emergencies under some
circumstances. Indeed they may not necessarily be infectious diseases. For example, animal pests such as the New
World and Old World screwworin flies may fit into this category.
Most people tend to equate emergency animal diseases with exotic or foreign animal diseases, although this is not
necessarily so. Unusual outbreaks of endemic diseases may also cause an emergency when there is, for instance, the
appearance of a new antigenic type such as a significantly different FMD virus subtype in an endemic country or
when there is a significant change in the epidemiological pattern of the disease such as an unusually severe outbreak
of anthrax. The emergence of previously unknown diseases may also cause an emergency, as in the case of bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the United Kingdom in 1986, equine paramyxovirus disease (Hendra virus) in
Australia in 1994 and Nipah virus disease of pigs and humans in peninsular Malaysia in 1999. There are other
animal health emergencies that may be caused by non-disease events, for example a major chemical residue problem
in livestock or a food safety problem such as haemorrhagic uraemic syndrome in humans caused by verotoxic strains
of E. coli contaminating animal products.
While this manual will focus on the major transboundary animal diseases, the preparedness planning principles
discussed can and should be applied equally to all types of disease and non-disease animal health emergencies
described. | |
