Introduction
Animal health and welfare policy is fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament, and Scottish Ministers are responsible for determining the policy response to any animal disease emergency situation.
Given that disease knows no boundaries and that Great Britain is a single epidemiological unit, a co-ordinated disease control approach will be taken across Great Britain. The lead role in any disease outbreak in Scotland will be taken by the Scottish Government working in close partnership with stakeholders and operational partners.
The Scottish Government has reviewed its existing exotic disease contingency plans with an aim to consolidate them into a generic contingency framework plan with specific exotic disease responses appended as annexes. This will support a rapid and flexible approach to the containment, control and eradication of exotic disease outbreaks within Scotland. The Scottish Government's Exotic Animal Disease Communications Strategy, which compliments the framework plan has also been reviewed to reflect the updated framework plan and to build upon experience and lessons from recent outbreaks.
Also currently under review is the Foot and Mouth Disease contingency plan, designed as an annex to the generic contingency framework plan, it takes into account the Recommendations of Prof. Scudamore's review of the the Foot and Mouth disease outbreak during 2007 and recommendations made after a FMD exercise utilising a draft of the framework plan run by the Animal Health Agency in 2008.
The consultation may be viewed at the link below.
Consultation on Scotland's Exotic Animal Disease Contingency Framework Plan and Communications Strategy
Listed below are the current Contingency plans.
Avian Influenza and Newcastle Disease
This Scottish Contingency Plan is for use in the event of an outbreak of Avian Influenza (AI) (in both its highly pathogenic form, HPAI, or its low pathogenic form, LPAI) or Newcastle Disease (ND). The two diseases are treated together as they are both viral diseases of birds, showing a similar epidemiology. The Plan is primarily intended for use in an outbreak of disease in farmed poultry rather than in wild birds.
Foot and Mouth Disease
The Foot and Mouth Disease contingency plan is currently under review.
The Plan is written in such a way as to be capable of dealing with a major disease outbreak which could be spread widely across Scotland. The Plan operates within the structure provided by the existing EU-approved GB Contingency Plan.
Communications Strategy
Although this document has been drafted with an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease in mind, it is designed to be broadly applicable to animal disease emergencies in general.
The Plan lays out the methods for communication and co-ordination between the Scottish Government and its operational partners and stakeholders in the event of suspicion or an occurance of an exotic disease outbreak within Scotland.
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