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Type
House
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Year
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Member
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Astor of Hever, Lord (1)
Answering member
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What processes are in place for monitoring (a) disease outbreaks, and (b) biological weapons release on food and animals in the United Kingdom; and how the United Kingdom is supporting similar capacity-building in other state signatories to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
What processes are in place for monitoring (a) disease outbreaks, and (b) biological weapons release on food and animals in the United Kingdom; and how the United Kingdom is supporting similar capacity-building in other state signatories to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
Asked by
Lord Astor of Hever
(Conservative)
Answered by
Lord Rooker
(Labour)
Type
Written questions
Status
Answered
Answered on
8 February 2007
To prevent the introduction of a biological disease, the Animal Health Act 1981 and other legislation provide wide-ranging powers to implement and enforce a variety of robust control measures. These include the imposition of quarantine and movement controls on animals and premises, which provide an effective means of protecting the public and other animals while investigations are carried out.
Defra also commissions scanning surveillance to identify new and emerging diseases. There is an established network of experts who meet regularly to share information on newly identified conditions. Where necessary, work is commissioned to investigate further, prepare risk assessments and consider possible public health implications.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) has developed ““indices of suspicion”” to help identify food contamination threats at an early stage. These include maintaining close contact with the Health Protection Agency, which will alert us to any information from its routine surveillance of human illness which might indicate a biological threat involving food. Similar arrangements exist through the health services in the devolved Administrations. The FSA also has an agreement with the State Veterinary Service and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency to alert the FSA immediately on finding any on-farm incident that may have implications for food safety and public health.
States party to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention agreed at their sixth review conference in 2006 to address the issue of capacity-building, including in the field of disease surveillance, as a part of their inter-session work programme between 2007 and 2010.
Subjects
Biological weapons; Contamination; Infectious diseases; Food; Livestock; Monitoring; Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
Date
8 February 2007
Reference
1717; 689 c165-6WA
House
House of Lords