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CIS countries to adopt common vet regulations concerning livestock freights transportations
CIS countries plan to introduce common rules of veterinary control in international transportations of livestock-origin loads.
According to the First Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Russian Federation Sergey Dankvert, the draft of the new rules is being discussed at the 23rd Meeting of the Inter-Governmental Council for Veterinary Cooperation of CIS Executive Committee, which has been held in Moscow since Thursday.
According to Dankvert, this issue is the most important on the agenda of the Meeting, as it would allow establishing single requirements to the transportations and would increase protection against invasions into the Commonwealth countries of dangerous loads. It is especially important in the light of the EU enlargement, he said.
Dankvert also said that the Meeting participants were discussing epizootic situation in the CIS countries, organisational principles of operation of the veterinary service of Russia, the issues of harmonising the national legislative bases and national approaches to safety assessment of genetically-modified organisms (GMO), and feeds, produced from GMO, improvement of preventive measures against murrain and other important issues in the field of veterinary medicine. It has been decided to create a working group for harmonisation of CIS countries' legislation in the field of veterinary medicine.
Dankvert also said that the Meeting participants were also speaking about the need to keep up a high enough legal status of veterinary services in the member countries. Referring to the data, provided in the presentation of the President of the International Epizootic Bureau's European Regional Commission Nikol Belev, S. Dankvert informed that "reduction of the veterinary service in the UK onto the level of a consultative body has resulted in the country's losing $51 billion over a ten-year period because of spread of spongiform encephalopathy (so called mad cow disease) and $31 billion - to murrain".