merrion street

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed T.D., today reaffirmed the continued drive of industry partners towards the eradication of bovine viral diarrhoea virus from the national herd when he confirmed that he has recently signed a new Statutory Instrument S.I No 182 of 2020, the Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (Amendment) Regulations 2020, to require the compulsory testing of animals in the national herd that were born prior to January 2013.

Minister Creed expressed his satisfaction with the ongoing progress being made in the eradication of BVD.  The Minister noted that substantial savings were being achieved by farmers, with the incidence of PIs falling to 0.04 % at the end of 2019 in from 0.66% at the end of 2013 – the first year of the compulsory phase of the Eradication Programme.

He said

the eradication effort and will now be further enhanced by the introduction of this amendment to the existing regulations.  The S.I. came into effect on May 2020 and is  now a legal requirement for all animals born on or before 1 January 2013 to have a known BVD status. Determining the status of these animals will enable the majority of these herds to acquire negative herd status within the programme, joining the 92% of breeding herds that have already achieved this status. My department will shortly be writing to the small number of herds affected by this amendment, advising them of the requirement to test and identifying the animals in question.

The Minster stated that the BVD Implementation Group continues work to bring the eradication programme to as speedy a conclusion as possible.

Finally, the Minister took the opportunity to thank Animal Health Ireland and the Industry’s BVD Implementation Group for their valuable work in leading the Eradication Programme.