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Animals: Diseases

Volume 471: debated on Thursday 31 January 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what notifiable animal disease outbreaks have occurred in each of the last 10 years; and what the estimated cost to (a) the British farming industry and (b) the public purse was of each. (181754)

A list of notifiable disease outbreaks for the last 10 years (taken from previous Chief Veterinary Officer annual reports) is set out in the following table.

Disease

2007

Avian Influenza (Al)

Bluetongue

Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)

Contagious Equine Metritis Organism (CEMO)

Bat Rabies (European Bat Lyssavirus Type 2)

Tuberculosis (TB)

2006

Al

Newcastle Disease

Bat Rabies

Anthrax

CEMO

Equine Infectious Anaemia

Scrapie

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

TB

2005

Newcastle Disease

CEMO

Scrapie

BSE

Paramyxovirus (PMV) in Pigeons

TB

2004

Brucellosis

Scrapie

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

Equine Viral Arteritis

TB

2003

Scrapie

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

CEMO

Brucellosis

TB

2002

Scrapie

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

CEMO

Anthrax

TB

2001

Scrapie

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

Foot and Mouth Disease

TB

2000

Scrapie

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

Classical Swine Fever

TB

1999

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

Scrapie

TB

1998

PMV in Pigeons

BSE

Equine Viral Arteritis

Scrapie

TB

Information on the cost of all notifiable disease outbreaks is not available for each of the past 10 years. Available evidence suggests that by far the most costly exotic disease outbreak in this period was FMD in 2001, which was estimated to have cost Government £2.6 billion (in 2001 prices), leaving a further £355 million in uncompensated costs to agricultural producers.

DEFRA's current estimate of the economic cost to the UK livestock sector as a result of the 2007 FMD outbreak is over £100million. The estimated total cost to the Government of the outbreaks in 2007 is £47 million for FMD, £1.7 million on bluetongue and £5 million on Al (two outbreaks). The other values could only be provided at disproportionate cost to the Department.