ROMANIA: Romania continues an emergency campaign of animal vaccination in lead up to EU accession

With just days to go before European Union accession, Romania is working to vaccinate animals against the pig disease, swine fever. Recently, EU food safety experts tightened rules on both Romania and Bulgaria to restrict their milk, meat and animal exports into other EU countries from January 1st. The EU executive hopes the move will send a positive signal to Russia in the Commission's bid to resolve a bitter dispute between Brussels and Moscow over meat imports. Russia has threatened to stop all EU imports of meat unless it receives assurances over the quality and safety of products after Bulgaria and Romania join the bloc next month, and is particularly concerned about the controls on animal diseases such as classical swine fever and bluetongue. The new rules are in addition to measures already imposed by the Commission as part of the conditions for Bulgaria and Romania's membership. Existing restrictions on exports of live pigs and pig meat from Romania and parts of Bulgaria to the EU due to classical swine fever were extended by the EU executive until September 2007. In addition, dozens of sub-standard slaughterhouses and food processing plants in Bulgaria and Romania will be barred from exporting to other EU nations for some time after accession, as was applied to central European new entrants in 2004. The EU has given a specific warning about the existence of swine fever in large areas of Romania - a warning which propelled the Romanian government into a massive emergency vaccination campaign. "At a time when a group of experts, the best European experts, are saying that in Romania the classic swine fever is endemic, that in 34 counties the disease is present and that the vaccination is recommended, of course the Romanian authorities must consider this recommendation," head of the National Veterinary and Food Security Agency, Marian Avram, said. The vaccination programme is aiming to eradicate the virus. The campaign will run alongside other new regulations which will put strict regulations on the housing, transport and killing practices of pig farms. "....the control of animal circulation, identification and registration of all pig farms and households, the registration of the entire pig population, the forbidding of unauthorised animal fairs, dead animal collection and destroying from all the authorised farms and households. With this we create the conditions for the extinction of the disease (swine fever)," Avram said. Veterinarians are determined to see the disease eradicated. "If the disease it is not eradicated by the end of the year, the vaccination campaign will carry on until we have finished vaccinating against swine fever all over the country," said senior veterinarian, Doctor Emilia Hersecu of Boldesti Scaeni village. While many of the regulations are unpopular amongst rural Romanians, vets say they are doing their best to make the transition easier. "If you turn up at the yard of a small piggery and ask the owner to pay for a compulsory vaccine, he won't agree. But if the vaccination is free then he will cooperate, and only in this way can we become a country free of the current diseases," Hersecu said. EU experts have also agreed that establishments in Romania and Bulgaria using products of animal origin imported from non-EU countries may not export those processed goods into EU markets. Avram said around 8,200 tonnes of non-EU meat, coming mostly from Brazil, Canada and the United States is currently deposited in warehouses across the country.

ITN Source | December 26, 2006

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