Good emergency management practice: the essentials

Page 65

Respond: The Basics

Inspecting animals and setting up checkpoints are important parts of the process of implementing movement controls; however, sometimes it is not possible to contain all animals and animal products. Checkpoints on major roads may cause unacceptable disruption, be too expensive to maintain or simply lead to people redirecting their animals onto minor roads where control points are known not to be present. Small livestock and poultry are readily concealed in vehicles and can be smuggled outside restricted areas. Movement restrictions will be most effective when they have minimal impact on the animal owners. Restrictions that are considered to be temporary or of short duration are likely to receive more popular support. Perhaps an assessment of the relative risks will suggest that some animal products could be allowed to move with little risk of disease dispersal (e.g. those that are routinely treated so that they would be made safe or extremely unlikely to contaminate animals given their destination). Allowing a low level of risk, such as the movement of pasteurized egg products, might encourage compliance with some other measures that would have much greater useful impact. Fear of losing their animals is an incentive for owners to move them away from an outbreak. This can be reduced if culling strategies are only applied to the extent necessary and where compensation is adequate and rapidly delivered. Further, effort must be taken to reassure owners that their animals will only be culled when it is really necessary and that they will be compensated. When applying movement restrictions, good communication is essential and it goes hand in hand with disease control.

Culling and disposal For most animal disease emergencies, some degree of culling is likely to be necessary. The greatest source of the infectious agent is actively infected and excreting animals. These animals are the most dangerous direct source of infection, but they may also lead to indirect infection through the movement of the infectious agent on inanimate objects (i.e. fomites), including vehicles, clothing and particularly people’s footwear. Production of the infectious agent effectively ceases when the animal is killed, although the carcasses may remain contaminated for a period after death. Disposal of the dead animals is not an essential element of disease control, but it is important. Communities will usually object to dead animals being left lying exposed for more than a couple of days and the environmental impact of this is also great. There is a risk of disease being spread from these carcasses by scavengers, but most organisms of concern are relatively sensitive to the changing conditions in a carcass. For instance, FMD virus is destroyed quickly at a pH below 6 and most of a dead carcass achieves this quite quickly in most tissues. So the ability to dispose of culled animals must be taken into account as well as the ability to kill them. Culling4 must be carried out in a humane manner. The actual method used varies from situation to situation. Where killing by free bullets is to be used, a careful assessment must be carried out to ensure that the firing lines are clear of people who could be accidentally injured. Those shooting the animals must be trained marksmen with experience in shooting 4

Culling methods vary and further advice may be obtained from the Terrestrial Animal Health Code and other GEMP materials.

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D: GEMP checklist

3min
pages 121-124

C: Risk analysis

18min
pages 111-120

A: Animal disease emergencies: their nature and potential consequences

9min
pages 103-106

Technical and financial support

2min
page 100

B: Risk periods

7min
pages 107-110

Restocking

2min
page 99

Stopping vaccination

2min
page 96

Recovery and rehabilitation of affected farming communities

2min
page 98

Declaration of official recognition of animal disease status

3min
page 97

Communication guidelines – press and public during outbreaks

1min
page 91

Local Disease (Animal) Control Centres

4min
pages 87-88

Difficult or marginalized areas

2min
page 90

National Disease (Animal) Control Centre

2min
page 86

Command and control during an outbreak

2min
page 84

Resource plans

1min
page 79

Risk enterprise manuals

1min
page 78

Operational manuals (or standard operating procedures

3min
pages 76-77

The geographical extent of culling: wide area culling or on a risk-assessed basis

2min
page 66

Management information system: the key indicators of progress

2min
page 69

Culling and disposal

2min
page 65

Contingency plan contents

6min
pages 72-75

Outbreak investigation

1min
page 70

Submission of samples from initial events to regional and world reference laboratories

1min
page 62

Animal health information systems

2min
page 59

Laboratory diagnostic capabilities

2min
page 60

Training veterinarians and other animal health staff

2min
page 55

Other strategies

2min
pages 51-52

Interface between field veterinary services and livestock farmers/traders

2min
page 54

Live bird marketing systems

2min
page 49

Developing cross-border contacts with neighbouring administrations

2min
page 46

Risk analysis processes in animal disease emergency planning

4min
pages 39-40

Incorporating risk analysis into the contingency plan

2min
pages 41-42

Illegal imports

2min
page 45

Updating disease plans

1min
pages 35-36

Contingency plans and operations manuals

2min
page 32

Public awareness

2min
page 34

A national disaster plan

3min
pages 18-20

Surveillance systems

2min
page 31

Compensation policy

2min
page 30

Factors affecting the frequency, size and length of disease emergencies

3min
pages 14-15

Role of central government, local authorities and the private sector

3min
pages 25-26

The required elements of preparedness planning

2min
page 17

Financing

2min
page 29

The value of planning for emergencies

2min
page 16
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