Before 1986, notifiable diseases relevant to cattle included anthrax, brucellosis, enzootic bovine leukosis, foot and mouth disease, tuberculosis and warble fly. 1 BSE was made notifiable in June 1988. The Government applies several criteria to establish whether a livestock disease should be made notifiable. Diseases that require notification are listed in an annex, which included, for example, foot and mouth disease. 3 9.6 Notification enables the Government to ascertain more easily the status of the disease on a national level, and to impose statutory movement controls and eradication schemes to rid the national herd of the disease as quickly as possible.
Eradication timescales vary according to the notifiable disease.
Although eradication schemes are usually based on slaughtering affected animals as the main source of infection, the eradication policy for BSE, at least in the early days, was based on the ruminant feed ban, which reduced the risks of transmission by cutting off the source of infection. The Government provides the funding for controland eradication of notifiable diseases, and the framework through the State Veterinary Service. A common feature of the schemes described is that the disease could be detected in a live animal. This was not the case with BSE, which could only be confirmed by examining the brain of the slaughtered animal. The notification and accompanying slaughter and compensation policy for BSE is discussed in vol.