Prepare: Elements of an emergency preparedness plan
ucts under free-trade pacts, e.g. the European Union, the Mercosur countries in South America, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) in west and southern Africa respectively.
Law enforcement Laws and regulations are obviously of little value unless they can be properly applied and enforced. Animal health and other officials must be given the necessary delegatory power and authorizations under animal health and quarantine acts to discharge their duties in a response to an animal health emergency. This includes other government agencies that are co-opted to provide assistance. It also may be necessary to enlist the assistance of the police and armed services in law enforcement under some circumstances, e.g. policing livestock movement restrictions and quarantining and protecting personnel involved in response activities.
Financing Experience has shown that delay in obtaining finances is one of the major constraints to a rapid response to emergency disease outbreaks. The application of even modest funds immediately will very likely save major expenditures later. Forward financial planning is therefore an essential component of preparedness. The finance plan should be drawn up in light of the required activities and should cover both ongoing costs (e.g. surveillance, risk analysis) and costs that are likely during an emergency (e.g. costs of control). The latter will be reflected in the associated contingency plan, as will some or all of the legislation. Financial plans need to be developed which provide for the immediate provision of contingency funds to respond to disease emergencies; that is, the funds required over and above normal operating costs for government veterinary services. The plans should be approved by all arms of government, including economic planning authorities and the Department of Finance. The funds may cover the cost of the whole eradication campaign. More typically, they will cover the initial phases of the campaign, pending a review of the outbreak and the control programme and of the funds required to finalize eradication. The conditions under which funds may be released should be specified in advance. Normally they would be provided to the CVO when s/he advises that: • the emergency disease has been diagnosed or there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the disease is present, • the outbreak is capable of being effectively controlled and/or eradicated, and • there are approved plans in place to do so. The funds may be held either as special funds sequestered for this particular purpose or there may be drawing rights provided up to a predetermined realistic amount against a specific government account. The NDCC should prepare an estimate of the level of financing required under a likely scenario for the first two weeks of a disease incursion, for each of the diseases identified as a priority. This estimate can be based on previous experience, experiences in similar countries, expert opinion or a combination of all three. These estimates should then be presented to the NADEPC.
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