Inspectors to be granted right to enter plants for testing

The legislation is being proposed to bring into national law an EU-wide agreement to monitor and identify new and existing strains of zoonoses - diseases that spread from animals and humans. Other national governments are in the process of passing similar leglislation to comply with the EU directive.

The UK's proposed Zoonoses (Monitoring) Regulations 2006 would also allow the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural affairs (Defra) to carry out specific surveys on targeted species. The object of such surveys would be to set targets for reducing the presence of such pathogens for each animal species.

The powers to conduct mandatory inspections and sampling would also be used in emergency situations, such as when a deadly outbreak occurs in the food chain, Defra said in a press release on Friday.

The powers granted to inspectors under the monitoring programme would impose only minor costs on meat processing plants and on primary meat producers, Defra said.

Under the law as proposed an inspector would have a right at all reasonable hours, to enter any premises on which any animal or animal feedingstuff is, or has been, present. The inspector would have the take samples and determine whether there is evidence of antimicrobial resistance in any zoonosis found at a premises.

If a zoonosis or zoonotic agent is detected in one of the samples, inspectors will not have the right to impose controls or measures that ":might affect the work or activities that can be conducted on the premises", according to a draft of the legisation.

The EU directive was adopted on 12 April 2000 after a European Commission scientific committee found that current monitoring measures in place at the time were insufficient to keep track of new and emerging zoonotic diseases.

Defra plans to start a zoonotic survey of the UK's turkeys and pigs in October this year.

Earlier this month the European Commission set targets for member states to meet in reducing the presence of Salmonella in poultry, and has proposed trade bans on eggs from flocks with persistent high levels of the pathogen.

The regulations are part of the overall EU strategy to reduce food borne diseases and is line with a timetable for drawing up Salmonella reduction targets for different animal species, which were set out in the 2003 regulation on zoonoses.

The rules follow the publication in June of a European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) study, which found about one in five of the EU's large scale commercial egg producers have laying hens infected with the Salmonella spp. pathogen.

Every member state will have to work towards reducing the number of laying hens infected with Salmonella by a specific minimum percentage each year, with steeper targets for those with higher levels of the pathogen. The first target deadline for incremental reduction falls in 2008. The ultimate target is to achieve a reduction in Salmonella levels to two per cent or less.

The regulation also sets out requirements for sampling and testing for Salmonella in laying hens, as well as the procedures for reporting results. It came into force yesterday, giving country regulators six months to submit national control programmes to the Commission for approval and for EU funding.

Salmonellosis along with campylobacteriosis, are by far the most frequently reported food borne diseases in the EU. Both diseases are frequently caught through ingesting poultry and poultry products, such as eggs. At EU-level the presence of any Salmonella spp. was detected in about 31 per cent of the large-scale laying hen holdings surveyed.

By far the most frequently reported zoonotic diseases in humans are salmonellosis and campylobacteriosis, with the most deadly being listerious, according to an European Commission study published last year.

The study found there were 192,703 reported cases of salmonellosis and 183,961 of campylobacteriosis cases reported during 2004 in the EU's 25 member states.

The cases are out of a total of 400, 000 human cases of zoonoses reported. Most of the cases were foodborne and associated with mild to severe intestinal problems.

The EU's new zoonoses directive 2003/99/EC became effective 12 June 2004. Reporting according to the new rules started with data collected during 2005.

Zoonoses are diseases, which are transmissible from animals to humans. The infection can be acquired directly from animals, or through ingestion of contaminated foodstuffs. The seriousness of these diseases in humans can vary from mild symptoms to life threatening conditions.

Similar targets on pathogens have already been set at EU level for breeding hens. The European Commission plans to bring forward separate targets to reduce Salmonella in broiler hens, turkeys and certain types of pigs in the coming years.

The deadline for comments on the draft UK legislation is 27 October. The department expects the legislation to come into force by November this year.