ANIMAL DISEASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 108, 3 November 1937, Page 23

ANIMAL DISEASE

NATIONAL CAMPAIGN

BRITISH MINISTRY'S PLAN

A national campaign to eliminate tuberculosis and other diseases from British herds and flocks is being planned by the Ministry of Agriculture. It is provided for in a new Act, and will come :into force on January 1 (writes "The Pofet's" London representative). It is expected that two years Will be required to carry out full tubercular tests on.' cattle, and that during the next four years £675,000 will be spent on the drive against disease generally. This sum will be spent in addition to the cost of increased' veterinary. service ' (£450,000) per annum' and the expenditure on the attested herds scheme (probably more than £750,600). .■■■,'■'

This y new 7 drive involves a fundamental, change, by removing responsibility for1 animal health irom the local authorities, y and .placing it u_>on , the Ministry of Agriculture. The' Ministry can already supply' lpO veterinary officers, and the 100 working for local authorities will presumably be employed also. Three hundred veterinary recruits , will be required, but some of these will be. men now engaged by local government authorities on parttime. Local rates will be saved £170,000 a year by this part of the plan. ■ ' '■"•.; ■'- . The country will be .'divided ! into sectors and the areas will be determined by local conditions, for disease takes no notice of county boundaries. All notifiable diseases will come within the province of the Ministry, which will also administer the Tuberculosis Order,, including slaughter of infected animals and payment of compensation to the* owners. At* the. present' mcmient details ' of "self-contained" herds—herds self-con-tained as regards their breeding and replenishment—are being collected, for these show the lowest incidence , of tuberculosis Tens of thousands of these animals wi!l7be examined and tested in the next two years and it is hoped to create from them attested herd areas where at least 75 per cent, of the animals will reach the attested standards. An attested herd must show no reactors to the tuberculin test administered at given intervals. The next step will be to close these areas to the admission of untested stock from outside. "Movement inside the areas, however, will be quite free and special markets may be set up. At the present moment there are nearly 450 attested herds in England and Wales and over 450 in Scotland. Ayrshire has 230 of these herds, and is likely to be the first attested area. ,

In the next four years',£2s,ooo will Ibe spent ,on research into poultry j diseases, which cost the poultry inI dustry about £4,000,000 a year in mortality alone, apart, from loss in egg 1 and meat production.

The September issue of the monthly bulletin of the Milk Publicity Council, however, summarises the results of the industrial campaign to the end of August, showing that 4814 firms with a total of 1,525,579 employees were then participating. The total consumption reported and estimated by factories, works, and collieries where the scheme had been reported to be already working by the end of July was ,589,144 gallons a month.

[Published by Arrangement.]

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