BSE Prevention and Control Policy in Belgium Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies Risk managementof BS

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BSE Prevention and Control Policy in
Belgium(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies)Ri
sk management of BSE in animal populations and in
the feed and food chainIr Gil HOUINS, CEO
(acting)
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Plan of this lecture

• Context of the disease precautionary principle
• Evolution of Belgian legislation
• Belgian statistics
• Outlines of control measures (passive and active
  surveillance, feed ban, withdrawal of specified
  risk materials, eradication, hygiene, training,
  sanitary restrictions)
• Financing, budgets

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Context of the disease

• Special nature of causes
• Rendering and animal feeding techniques,
  involving high hazards for public health
• Public health hazards, estimated as major and
  widespread, food related, raising substantial
  collective awareness
• Special mode of management
• Implementation of the risk analysis and the
  precautionary principle

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The precautionary principle ?

• Recourse to the precautionary principle when
• Potentially dangerous effects have been
  identified in a scientific risk assessment
• Risk assessment does not allow to define the risk
  with sufficient certainty (not conclusive)
• Decision makers must judge the  acceptable 
  level of risk for society

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Evolution of Belgian legislation

• Initially several Royal and Ministerial
  Decrees, most of them based upon European
  legislation
• 1990 mandatory notification of disease
• 1990 embargo on animals and meat from UK and
  Portugal (evolutionary)
• 1994 ban on mammal proteins in feed for
  ruminants
• 1997 standards for sterilizing animal waste
  (133, 20, 3 bars)
• 1997 Royal Decree on epidemiological
  surveillance of TSE
• 1998 withdrawal of SRM, more than 2 years
  before EC obligation (Dec.2000/418EC)
• 1999 ban on recycling dead animals in animal
  feed, 2 years before EC ban
• 2001 extension of feed ban to all farmed
  animals kept, fattened or bred for the production
  of food, and to proteins of all animals
• 2001 systematic detection of TSE by rapid test
• Subsequently several Royal and Ministerial
  Decrees and official instructions to implement
  certain dispositions of Regulation (EC) No
  999/2001 into internal law (division of powers,
  enforcement measures)

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Outlines of risk management measures

• Two main objectives
• Eradicate TSE in animal populations
• Eliminate the infectious agent from the feed and
  food chain ( limit the exposure of animal and
  human populations)
• Passive (clinical) and active (rapid tests)
  surveillance
• Feed ban
• Withdrawal of specified risk material
• Control and eradication of affected animals and
  herds
• Marketing restrictions for animals and products
• Specific actions on animal by-products

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Prevention Passive surveillance

• Passive or  clinical  surveillance
• Since 1990 Scientific epidemiological
  surveillance network (related to rabies
  surveillance)
• No positive results
• Since 1997 Public authority takes charge of
  official epidemiological surveillance
• Target bovine (including bison), ovine and
  caprine animals
• Places farms, markets, transports,
  slaughterhouses (ante mortem)
• Actors keepers, practising veterinarians, ante
  mortem experts

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BSE Statistics Belgium
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Prevention Active Surveillance (1)

• Active Surveillance detection by means of rapid
  tests
• Since 2001 systematic search for PrPres in the
  brainstem, in slaughterhouses and rendering
  plants
• Actors veterinarians of the Agency
• Target dead bovine animals gt 24 months,
  slaughtered bovine animals gt 24 (emergency
  slaughter) or 30 months (healthy), slaughtered
  ovine and caprine animals gt 18 months, sampling
  of dead ovine and caprine animals gt 18 months (in
  BE 3.000 ov 200 cap per year)

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Prevention Active Surveillance (2)

• Rapid tests approved of by the Commission (test
  used in BE Bio-Rad TeSeE)
• Analysing laboratories accredited by BELAC and
  approved by the Agency (4 -gt 19)
• Favourable result OK for consumption and other
  use
• Unfavourable result mandatory notification,
  seizure of carcass and by-products (ABP), herds
  involved placed under supervision, confirmation
  of diagnosis ( classical tests)

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BSE Statistics - Belgium
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BSE Statistics - Belgium
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Number of BSE cases per year
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Context of detected BSE cases
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Control and eradication Bovine animals

• From 1997 to Oct. 2003 killing of animals
  identified by epidemiological survey
• herds of origin and of residence
• birth and rearing cohort
• descendants of female animals
• Since Nov. 2003 killing restricted to animals
• birth cohort bovine animals born in the same
  herd as the affected animal, within 12 months
  before or after the affected animal was born
• rearing cohort bovine animals reared at any
  moment in the first year of their life together
  with the affected animal, at any moment of the
  first 12 months of the life of the affected
  animal
• descendants of affected female animals, born in
  the 2 years prior to suspicion
• Rapid tests on eradicated animals gt 12 months
• Compensation of owners of animals killed or
  destroyed

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Evolution in number of eradicated animals
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Prevention - Feed ban

• 1994 Ban on the use of proteins derived from
  mammals for feeding ruminants
• 1997 Pressure cooking system for processing
  mammalian waste into MBM (133, 20, 3 bars)
• 2001 Extended to the feeding of all farmed
  animals kept, fattened or bred for the production
  of food, and to proteins of all animals
• Future evolution depending on implementation of
  regulations (feed ban, animal by-products),
  available laboratory methods, moral issues
• Surveillance awareness and responsibility of
  operators, approval of establishments,
  traceability, prevention of cross contaminations,
  laboratory analyses, self-checking and official
  control

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Prevention Specified risk material

• SRM Organs and tissues the infectivity (high
  level of abnormal prions) of which has been
  scientifically established
• Since 1998 (2 years before EC!) withdrawal of
  SRM (afterwards, evolutionary list)
• In slaughterhouses (all SRM), cutting plants
  (head of bovine animals gt 12 months), cutting
  plants and butchers shops (vertebral column of
  bovine animals gt 24 months)
• Particular precautions with respect to withdrawal
  (tongue, head, splitting of carcasses), marking,
  weighing, traceability
• Only possible issue elimination destruction
  by incineration or co-incineration (cement
  factories) after processing ( meat-and-bone meal
  )

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Prevention Specific Risk Material

• Organs and tissues the infectivity (high level of
  abnormal prions) of which has been scientifically
  established

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Prevention Hygiene Measures

• Slaughtering techniques spinalisation
  prohibited, particular precautions for the
  withdrawal of SRM (tongue, head, spinal cord),
  elimination of  neighbouring carcasses (1
  before, 2 after) of carcass with a positive rapid
  test result
• Traceability of meat including parts of the
  vertebral column
• Prohibition to produce MRM (mechanically
  recovered meat) from bones of bovine, ovine and
  caprine animals
• Recommendations of the Superior Health Council at
  the request of the Agency precautions for staff
  members handling SRM (meat and animal by-products
  industry)(July 2002)

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Prevention Training

• Mandatory training programmes for staff members
• Livestock farmers
• Practising veterinarians
• Veterinarians of the Agency
• Slaughterhouses, cutting plants, butchers shops
• Rendering plants
• Laboratories
• Agricultural and veterinary schools
• Subject clinical signs, epidemiology, hygiene,
  specific technologies
• Financial European Community aid

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Laboratories and analyses

• 19 approved laboratories (and in BE accredited)
  for rapid tests
• rapid test used in BE Bio-Rad TeSeE
• National reference laboratory CERVA/CODA
  (contract with Agency) Classical
  confirmation tests
• TSE affected flock ov-cap discriminating test
  BSE/scrapie CERVA/CODA
• TSE Database (Agency) centralisation of data of
  screening laboratories, administration of results
  and statistics

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Financing - Budgeting

• Contract with National reference laboratory
  Agency
• Compensation for eradicated animals FSA (Budget
  Fund for the Health and the Production of
  Animals)
• Rapid tests at rendering plant Agency
• Rapid tests at slaughterhouse 10,7 to be paid
  by abattoir owners EC contribution balance to
  be paid by Agency budget
• Rendering of ruminants Regional Ministries of
  Environment (100 pct contribution in Walloon
  Region, partial contribution in Flemish Region)

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Evolution of costs of BSE test in slaughterhouse
(without VAT)
 
 
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Estimation of costs of BSE tests
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Future development

• TSE roadmap reflection paper providing outline
  of possible future changes to EU measures on TSE
  in the short, medium and long-term
• significant overall decrease in the number of BSE
  cases
• BE 46 BSE cases in 2001 2 in 2006 (up
  to this date)
• average age of positive BSE cases in healthy
  slaughtered animals has risen
• BE 68 months in 97 162 months in
  2006 (up to this date)
• any amendments to or relaxation of measures in
  the future will be based on scientific advice and
  must have full Member State backing

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Future development (2)

• Opinion 32-2006 of SciCom of FASFC on
  mathematical model BSurvE
• Proposed model not adapted to evaluate
  epidemiological situation in BE (some data to be
  introduced in the model are not available for
  BE), however model can be improved
• Proposal for reduction of number of rapid tests
  must be based on this improved model
• Reservation concerning reduction of number of
  rapid tests by raising age threshold
  (re-emergence of disease will be missed, as this
  affects young animals)

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Congratulation to the new CRL !