Regulations on prevention and fighting against animal epidemics in Vietnam

Regulations on prevention and fighting against animal epidemics in Vietnam (Internet image)

1. Animals

According to Clause 1, Article 3 of the Law on Veterinary Medicine 2015, animal includes:

- Terrestrial animals include livestock and poultry, wild animals, reptiles, bees, silkworms and other species of animals that live on land;

- Aquatic animals include fishes, crustaceans, mollusks, amphibious, aquatic mammals and other species of animals that live in water.

2. Contents of the prevention and fighting against animal epidemics in Vietnam

Contents of the prevention and fighting against animal epidemics in Vietnam according to Article 14 of the Law on Veterinary Medicine 2015 are as follows:

- The application of prophylactic measures, the diagnosis, treatment; monitoring, warnings of raising environment; supervision, warnings about the epidemic; inspections of the epidemic; analysis of the risk; control of animal epidemics.

- The cleaning, decontamination, disinfection of raising environment.

- Foundation of animal epidemic-free zones/establishments; programs and plans for controlling and erasing a number of dangerous animal infectious diseases, diseases capable of transmitting between animals and humans.

- Accurate, sufficient and prompt provision of information about animal epidemics, supportive policies in prevention and fighting against animal epidemics.

- Propagation, dissemination and training of measures for prevention and fighting against animal epidemics.

3. Prevention of animal diseases in Vietnam

According to Article 15 of the Law on Veterinary Medicine 2015, the prevention of animal diseases is as follows:

- Raising places and raising tools shall be cleansed and decontaminated, disinfected, and have vector removed periodically after each raising period; raising places shall be conformable to local planning or approved by a competent agency.

- Waste from animal raising shall be treated according to the law provisions on environmental protection. Regarding closed aquaculture system, water supply for animal raising shall assure the quality; waste water, waste matter shall be treated before being discharged to ensure veterinary hygiene and shall be in accordance with the law provisions on environmental protection.

- Stud and feed used in animal raising shall be epidemic-free, ensure veterinary hygiene and shall conform to the law provisions on livestock breeds and the law provisions on animal feed.

- Compulsory preventive measures for dangerous infectious diseases shall be adopted to animals at the request of veterinary authorities.

- The expenses of compulsory preventive vaccine in the emergency programs for control and elimination of animal epidemics, prevention and fighting against epidemic shall be covered by the state budget; veterinary authorities are responsible for formulating and requesting competent authorities to approve and organizing the plan on use of vaccine against animal diseases.

- Responsibilities of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural development:

+ Promulgate the List of animal diseases subject to outbreak declaration; the List of diseases capable of transmitting between animals and humans; the List of diseases

+ Issue the compulsory prophylactic measures; veterinary hygiene standards and environmental hygiene in animal raising; requirements on animals/animal products for transporting out of epidemic zones;

+ Decide the use of veterinary drugs that have not been registered for sale in Vietnam for emergencies for prompt prevention and fighting against animal diseases;

+ Establish procedures and application documents for recognition of animal epidemic-free zone/establishment.

4. Supervision of animal diseases in Vietnam

Supervision of animal diseases according to Article 16 of the Law on Veterinary Medicine 2015 is as follows:

- Supervision of animal diseases is for promptly discovery of diseases that are likely to cause serious damage to economy and society, pathogens of dangerous infectious animal disease and diseases capable of transmitting between animals and humans.

- The animal disease supervision program shall be issued by competent agencies for a number of dangerous infectious animal diseases to encourage the owners of animals, owners of animal-raising establishments to be initiative in prevention and fighting against animal diseases.

- Owners of animal-raising establishments shall:

+ Carry out the supervision of animal diseases in the establishment according to the guidance of veterinary authorities;

+ When participating in the animal disease supervision program prescribed in clause 2 of this Article, the owner of animal-raising establishment shall comply with the requirements of the veterinary authorities and may transport animals/animal products out of the epidemic zones according to the guidance of veterinary authorities;

+ Supervise and record the animal raising and prevention and fighting against animal diseases;

+ Report to the authorities and veterinary authorities if an animal is determined carrying pathogens on the List of animal diseases subject to outbreak declaration and the List of diseases capable of transmitting between animals and humans and take the handling measures according to the regulations.

- The facilities in charge of conducting testing and diagnosing the animal disease shall report to the authorities and veterinary authorities if a pathogen on the List of animal diseases subject to outbreak declaration and the List of diseases capable of transmitting between animals and humans is determined.

- Veterinary authorities shall:

+ Build up the animal disease monitoring program during the raising, transport, slaughter, trade or import of animals/animal products on the basis of the situation of the animal epidemics;

+ Initiatively inspect and collect specimens for animal disease monitoring;

+ Periodically or irregularly conduct supervision of infectious diseases capable of transmitting between animals in the wild and animals raised at wild animal-raising establishments, zoos, bird gardens, biodiversity sanctuaries, nature reserves;

+ On the basis of the supervising result and the epidemiological characteristics of animals, provide forecasts/warnings about a number of dangerous infectious animal diseases and provide guidelines for prevention and fighting against the diseases.

If a disease capable of transmitting between animals and humans is discovered, the veterinary authority shall promptly reported to the medical agency of the same level and provide warnings for farmers and the community to initiatively isolate the infected animals and prevent the disease from transmitting to humans;

+ Build up and manage the database system about the supervision of animal diseases and the information on forecast/warnings about animal diseases; accept and provide feedback on animal diseases;

+ Grant the certificates of participation in the program on animal disease monitoring ensuring the safety.

Quoc Dat

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