Volume 14: Responsibilities for Human and Animal Health
2. Identification and control of animals showing symptoms of disease
Control measures

2.15 As Mr Alistair Cruickshank, a former Grade 3 head of MAFF's Animal Health Group, told the Inquiry, making a disease 'notifiable' simply meant that:

. . . anybody who finds the disease, is required to notify it to the Ministry. But it does not follow [that] any particular action is taken in relation to that disease. It is mainly a statistical exercise . . . an information building exercise ¹

So notification did not in itself impose any measures to deal with the disease.

2.16 However, the range of available control measures was wide and, as with notification, the appropriate powers were usually applied by Order to a particular disease from the available 'menu' within the Animal Health Act itself, depending upon the nature of the disease concerned. Dr Danny Matthews ² explained this as follows:

Following confirmation of a notifiable disease in an animal, herd or flock the measures introduced are based upon the epidemiology of the disease, the consequential public and animal health risks presented, with inevitable economic consequences, and the powers contained in the appropriate statute. Increasingly the statutory bases of control are established in European law but will usually have been predated by existing British legislation. Investigations will usually involve clinical inspections, coupled with sampling for serological evidence of infection. With rapidly spreading diseases such as foot and mouth disease priority may be given to sampling for the detection of virus rather than antibodies.

Consequential action may involve the slaughter of a single animal (a reactor) with further testing of the herd at a later date after a period in which movements out of the herd may be restricted. There will obviously be additional investigations in an attempt to determine the source of infection. Brucellosis and tuberculosis are two diseases that are dealt with by such an approach. Alternatively the nature of the disease may demand more drastic action in order to rapidly break a cycle of infection of other herds. This applies to exotic diseases such as foot and mouth disease, classical swine fever, avian influenza, fowl pest. In such instances confirmation of disease would result in rapid whole herd/flock slaughter and the enforcement of standstill orders on farms within a specified radius of the affected farm. Because live infected animals excrete large quantities of virus in such instances, with considerable potential for spread by air as well as through movements of animals, humans and products, immediate draconian action is both effective and justified. ³

2.17 There were specific legislative provisions for control measures. Firstly, section 63 of the Act permitted the inspection of premises in almost any circumstances to establish the extent of disease. Inspectors, who could be appointed by the Minister or by the local authority, ⁴ could enter any land, building or place where they suspected that:

1. the carcass of a diseased or suspected animal was kept or had been kept or disposed of in any manner;
2. there was any pen, place, vehicle or thing in respect of which anyone had failed to comply with the Act or an Order;
3. the Act or an Order had not been complied with.

2.18 Then, depending on the terms of any Order made under this section, an inspector could examine any carcass or animal, make any tests on animals he considered necessary, and mark those animals for identification purposes. This power enabled the authorities to check the true extent of the disease where owners might, for whatever reason, be reluctant to give notification of diseased animals. It therefore permitted more effective and complete control of infected animals by enabling more precise knowledge to be obtained.

2.19 Secondly, movement generally could be controlled by Orders made under section 8 of the Act, and movement of diseased or suspected animals in particular was controlled under section 25. These powers enabled Ministers to:

1. prescribe and regulate animal markings;
2. prohibit and regulate animal movement, including the removal of carcasses, fodder, litter and dung, and the isolation of newly purchased animals;
3. prescribe and regulate the issue and production of movement licences; and
4. prohibit and regulate the holding of markets, fairs, exhibitions and animal sales.

2.20 More specific Orders could be made under sections 9 to 11 to prohibit animal conveyance by particular means, where this could introduce or spread disease in Great Britain, and to regulate the export to Member States of the EC of animals or carcasses, whether or not subject to licensing arrangements.

2.21 The above powers, which provided a 'menu' of options, were usually implemented by veterinary inspectors' being granted the power to serve notices on particular owners regarding individual diseased animals or entire herds, or by the publication of area-wide or national restrictions on movement. This could be further reinforced by the use of the power to mark and hence identify suspect animals and by the use of movement licences or permits, which could identify and control the movement of the animals in question by reference to the marking system.

2.22 Thirdly, section 7 of the Act empowered Ministers to make Orders prescribing and regulating the cleansing and disinfection of any places used for animals, including any vehicles, vessels or aircraft, and for the disinfection of the clothes of anyone in contact with diseased or suspect animals. This power had been widely used before 1986 in dealing with diseases which were particularly contagious and easily transmitted and spread by contact. In this respect, they complemented the controls requiring separation of diseased animals and those prohibiting or regulating movement.

2.23 Where outbreaks of disease were confined to relatively limited areas, sections 17 and 23 of the Act gave Ministers powers to declare that places or areas were infected with that particular disease. ⁵ Within these infected areas or places, Ministers could make further Orders prohibiting or regulating movement of animals or people, requiring the isolation or separation of animals, prohibiting the removal of carcasses, fodder, dung, utensils and equipment from such areas or the destruction, burial, disposal or treatment of those items, and prescribing and regulating cleansing and disinfection, including clothes of people in those areas.

2.24 The risk to human health from the transmission of animal diseases was recognised by section 29 of the 1981 Act, which enabled the Ministers to make Orders designating as a zoonosis any disease or organism which carried such a risk. Further Orders could be made under this section to apply the provisions of the Act to the zoonosis and to require anyone who knew, suspected, or had information that any animal was affected by a zoonosis to give information to that effect to persons and in the form specified by the Order. The powers under this section were subsequently used to designate BSE as a zoonosis. ⁶ Section 30 of the Act enabled a veterinary inspector who had reason to believe that an animal known or suspected of carrying a zoonosis had been on any land, to enter that land and make tests and take samples to establish whether this was the case. This complemented the general entry powers of section 63 expressly in relation to zoonoses.

2.25 Further general powers for the purpose of preventing the spread of disease were contained in section 16. Under these, the Ministers could cause to be treated with vaccine or serum any animal or bird which had been in contact with a diseased animal or bird, or which appeared to have been in any way exposed to infection, or which was in an infected area. In order to fund the potentially very expensive cost of disease control, section 3 granted the power, subject to Treasury approval, to spend such sums as the Ministers thought fit, with the aim of eradicating diseases of animals in Great Britain. ⁷ Section 3(2) enabled Ministers to authorise any veterinary inspector or other officer of the Ministry to inspect animals in order to obtain information for disease eradication.