From: believer@telepath.com Subject: IP: UK: Microchips & Animal Passports for Pets Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 06:40:49 -0500 To: believer@telepath.com Source: London Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000150689433551&rtmo=gYkgwZZu&atmo=99999 999&P4_FOLLOW_ON=/98/9/19/npets19.html&pg=/et/98/9/19/npets19.html UK News Electronic Telegraph Saturday 19 September 1998 Issue 1212 Passports for pets in new rabies law By David Brown, Agriculture Editor BRITAIN'S stringent anti-rabies quarantine laws are to be swept aside in favour of electronic scanners and animal passports under plans to be published by the Government next week. A scheme relying on microchip implants that can be electronically monitored, together with documentary proof that animals have been immunised against rabies and other diseases, are among a raft of proposals that could mean the demise of mandatory six-months quarantine for all imported animals. Under the proposals, animals travelling between designated "low disease risk" countries in Europe and elsewhere would be allowed entry on condition that they were carefully screened on arrival and possibly subjected to blood tests. The Government is likely to back the proposals for a radical overhaul of the increasingly controversial quarantine system, which has been Britain's main front-line defence against rabies for nearly a century. Currently, imported pets must be held in nominated kennels for six months until vets decide they pose no health risk to people or animals in this country. Diplomats and members of the Armed Forces will be among those who should find life easier - if their overseas posts meet new criteria for assessing potential risks and their animals are properly vaccinated and provided with proposed new movement documents. But quarantine will not disappear completely under the plans drawn up over the past 10 months by a team of independent government advisers headed by Prof Ian Kennedy of University College, London. It will remain as a safety net to screen animals imported from countries that still have a problem with rabies - including many in Eastern Europe, North and South America, Africa and the Far East. "It will not be the free-for-all that some people might expect," Whitehall sources said last night. Nick Brown, the Minister of Agriculture, is expected to call a press conference next Wednesday to publish the report. But before the Government acts, the plans will be circulated for consultation among vets, animal welfare organisations, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, dog and cat breed societies, farmers and other groups with an interest in animal health. Britain's last major rabies scare was in 1969. In 1983, an Irish Wolfhound imported from the United States was caught with rabies in a quarantine kennel and in June 1996, at the height of the BSE crisis, a rabid bat that is believed to have crossed the Channel, bit a pregnant woman in Newhaven, Sussex. The Government decided in October last year to review the current quarantine arrangements after coming under mounting pressure from animal welfare groups and pet owners, including Chris Patten, Britain's last Governor of Hong Kong, who complained about difficulties in returning his family's pet dogs to Britain. Those complaints, coupled with the decline of rabies in EU countries, have given added impetus for the reform of the system over the past two years. But many vets remain to be convinced that easing quarantine is a good idea, arguing that veterinary certificates issued abroad may not be valid. The British Veterinary Association said last night: "We have not seen a copy of this report but our position is clear. We will not agree to any changes which do not, in our view, provide the United Kingdom with at least the level of safeguards against disease that the present quarantine system provides." © Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1998. ----------------------- NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ----------------------- ********************************************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, email: majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com with the message: (un)subscribe ignition-point email@address ********************************************** www.telepath.com/believer **********************************************