2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE FIVE - Agriculture (§§ 1 — 4706) › Chapter 29 - Livestock Disease Control (§§ 641 — 838d) › Subchapter II - Disease Control by Department of Health (§§ 661 — 694) › § 684 - Regulations

The Secretary of Health shall have power, with the approval of the Council of Secretaries, to make and enforce such regulations as in his opinion are necessary for any of the following purposes, to wit:
(a) The subjecting of animals to quarantine, or causing the same to be slaughtered upon their arrival in Puerto Rico, or the destroying of any hay, straw, fodder or other article by which in his opinion infection or contagion may be conveyed, and generally the regulation of the importation or introduction into Puerto Rico of animals in such a manner as to prevent the introduction of any infectious or contagious disease into Puerto Rico.
(b) The keeping separate, treatment and disposal of, and dealing generally with, animals infected with infectious or contagious disease.
(c) The segregating and confining of animals within certain limits, the establishing of districts of inspection or of quarantine, and the prohibiting or regulating of the removal to or from such parts or places in Puerto Rico as he may designate in such regulations of animals, or of their meat, skin, hide, horns, hoofs or other articles likely to propagate infection or disease.
(d) The purifying of any yard, stable, outhouse or other place, or any wagon, cart, carriage or other vehicle, or of any vessel, and the directing of how any animals dying in a diseased state, or any animals or parts of animals or other things seized under the provisions of §§ 661—694 of this title, are to be destroyed or otherwise disposed of.
(e) The posting of notices to be given of the appearance of any disease among animals.
(f) The requiring of notice of the appearance of any disease among animals.
(g) The prohibition or regulating of the holding of markets, fairs, exhibitions or sales of animals.
(h) The declaring that any market, railway, yard, stockyard, wharf, steamship, steam or other vessel, railway car or any other vehicle, on or in which animals are exposed for sale, or placed for the purpose of transportation, is infected and that the same shall be disinfected and shall not be used until he has declared such disinfection to have been accomplished.
(i) The slaughtering of animals as provided for by §§ 661—694 of this title.
(j) The requiring of proof of the fact that animals imported into or passing through Puerto Rico have not at any time of their embarcation been brought from any place or locality where any infectious or contagious disease was at said time in existence.
(k) The exempting of certain infectious and contagious diseases from the operation of certain specified provisions of §§ 661-694 of this title.
(l) The taking of all of the necessary steps for the better execution of §§ 661—694 of this title and the carrying out to the fullest possible extent of the purposes of §§ 661—694 of this title to prevent the spread of infectious and contagious diseases among animals and the extirpation of such diseases as may be found to exist. Every regulation issued in accordance with the provisions of §§ 661—694 of this title shall have the same force and effect as if it had been embodied in §§ 661—694 of this title. The Council of Secretaries shall have power to amend any such regulation submitted to it for approval and when approved by the Council of Secretaries such regulation shall have all the force and effect of law, and every such regulation shall be published at least twice in one or more newspapers of general circulation in the Commonwealth.
History —Mar. 14, 1907, p. 85, § 24, eff. July 1, 1907.