|
Sheep & Goat Health Committee
Mid-Year Report
August 27, 2004
Scrapie
Stakeholder Summit
NIAA will plan and facilitate a meeting involving state and federal
animal health officials, producers, practitioners and other sheep industry
stakeholders. This meeting
will: a) provide a forum for industry/government interface; b) give
producers a sense of ownership of the program; c) spur producer advocates
for the eradication effort; and d) provide important feedback from
industry leaders to USDA on what has worked successfully and what needs
attention and possible change. Plans for organizing and hosting this
meeting (in 2005) should be made relatively soon assuming that the
USDA-State audits of the National Scrapie Eradication Program are
completed in 2004. Some of the key issues to address will be: consistency
of program operation in the states, direction for change indicated by the
massive number of epidemiological investigations conducted since program
inception (9/01), direction suggested by current research, and issues with
animal testing as well as disposal.
Eradicate Scrapie! Website – The committee chair and vice-chair
plan to assist staff with providing new information to continue to make
the website a valuable asset to industry and veterinarians.
The powerpoint presentation is currently under revision with plans
to release the latest version October 1, 2004 pending APHIS review of the
changes that have been made. Changes that have been made address ID
requirements relative to consistency between NAIS and NSEP as well as NSEP
updates.
Major
Issues
The major issue in front of the committee in the timeframe between the
annual meeting and now has been sheep and goat ID.
The working groups’ attempted to develop industry-supported
reports regarding some of the details of a national livestock ID system.
Committee members have been closely engaged in listening and
assimilating comments forthcoming from industry, veterinarians and
regulators.
Cooperative
Agreement
There was a possibility for NIAA to set up a cooperative agreement
with APHIS specific to sheep and goat ID research coordination but after
considerable deliberation, APHIS opted to set up this agreement with the
chair of the Sheep ID Working Group through the University of Minnesota.
Future
Activities
The committee will attempt to
include goat issues to a greater extent than has occurred in the past.
|
