News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – To speed emergency responses to avian influenza and other animal and plant diseases, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) inaugurated a new crisis management center (CMC) at its Rome headquarters today.

(CIDRAP News) – Three international health agencies announced yesterday the launch of a joint early warning system to allow a quicker response to animal diseases that can spread to humans (zoonoses).

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) announced today that a new animal disease crisis management center will begin operating in late July at FAO headquarters in Rome, with an initial focus on H5N1 avian influenza.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released a guide to helps farmers protect crops and animals from security threats.

The guide, titled "Pre-Harvest Security Guidelines and Checklist 2006," offers voluntary, practical measures to help farmers protect crops and animals from natural disasters and naturally or intentionally introduced pathogens.

(CIDRAP News) – The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not have adequate measures in place to test for and monitor avian influenza in commercial poultry, an audit by the department's inspector general said yesterday, according to news services.

(CIDRAP News) – Two vaccines protected chickens against Newcastle disease (ND) and avian influenza and may provide approaches for producing human vaccines against the H5N1 avian flu virus, according to two studies published in the May 26 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(CIDRAP News) – Under a schedule laid out yesterday by federal agriculture officials, a nationwide livestock identification system to help in the investigation and control of animal disease outbreaks will be fully operational by 2009.

(CIDRAP News) – Minnesota cattlemen are facing an economic blow from a once-banished nemesis: bovine tuberculosis.

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health (BAH) announced on Dec 8 that the USDA would drop the state's TB status a notch, from TB-free to "Modified Accredited Advanced." The reduction in status took effect Jan 30.