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Written question asked by Mike Hancock (Liberal Democrat) on Tuesday, 28 June 2005, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 30 June 2005. It was answered by Caroline Flint (Labour) on Thursday, 21 July 2005 on behalf of the Department of Health.

Foreign Animal Species

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of illness due to exposure to foreign animal species have been reported in each of the last five years; and what species were involved in each case.
Answer

The Department does not have ready access to the information requested. The Health Protection Agency holds surveillance information for several zoonotic diseases, including food poisoning, but will not usually be able to relate this directly to exposure to foreign animal species. For diseases where this can be done, such as rabies and anthrax exposure, the figures for the United Kingdom are shown in the following table.

Rabies Anthrax
2000 0 0
2001 2 2
2002 1 0
2003 0 0
2004 0 0

For both the rabies cases in 2001, these were acquired abroad and were due to direct exposure to infected dogs. Both patients died. The rabies case in 2002 was also fatal. It was due to direct exposure within the UK to a species of bat which also occurs abroad. Both the cases of anthrax recovered following treatment and were due to exposure within the UK to infected animal skins, though the species of animal is not known.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
8980; 436 c2162-3W;436 c2162-3W
Session
2005-06
Subjects
Animals Infectious diseases