Import and Export legislation - Ornamental Fish International

Legislation
Fish health Regulation
In 1920, rinderpest
occurred unexpectedly in
Belgium, as a result of
zebus, originating in
India and destined for Brazil, passing
through the port of Antwerp. Massive
mortalities among Belgian cows were
the result.
Despite the inevitable slowness of the
negotiations undertaken through
diplomatic channels, twenty-eight
countries reached an "international
agreement" on 25 January 1924 on
measures to prevent such outbreaks in
the future. The ratification of this 1924
Agreement created the Office
International des Epizooties (OIE)
based in Paris. Today the OIE is the
world organisation for animal health
and numbers 167 members worldwide.
This does not mean that the problems
of animal diseases have been solved.
Since 1920, the volume of animals
transported around the world have
only increased year by year and with
that also the risk of the spread of
disease. However, without the OIE it
would perhaps have become
impossible to find healthy cattle
anywhere in the world at present.
OIE has made a list of diseases that
are so dangerous that worldwide
measures are needed. If a disease
from this list has been detected in one
of the member countries, it must be
reported to the OIE office in Paris.
Furthermore a series of measures
were adopted, based on scientific
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Ornamental Fish International
research, to prevent the
further spread of disease.
Measures include a
notification system,
international cooperation,
the establishment of disease-free
countries, zones and farms, regular
controls by national veterinary
authorities and import restrictions in
disease-free zones.
Health status
The guidelines include the possibility
that countries, zones or farms can
thrive on an official disease-free status,
for the relevant disease. Countries
might decide to implement such a
policy to protect their aquaculture
production, however, programs to
attain disease-free status demand long
periods of testing according to the OIE
approved methods and regular
controls (see OIE manual). The costs
do not often weigh up against the
benefits of a disease-free status.
Fish diseases
Several fish diseases are also
mentioned in the OIE list of notifiable
diseases:
o Epizootic haematopoietic necrosis
(EHN)
o Infectious haematopoietic necrosis
(IHN)
o Spring viraemia of carp (SVC)
o Viral haemorrhagic septicaemia
(VHS)
o Infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN)
o Infectious salmon anaemia (ISA)
o Epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS)
o Bacterial kidney disease (BKD)
o Gyrodactylosis (Gyrodactylus salaris)