The European Union has committed close to €161m to combat animal diseases and zoonoses in 2016.
This is to support eradication, control and surveillance programmes as well as further strengthen the protection of human and animal health.
Overall, 130 programmes have been selected for EU funding under the Regulation 652/2014 on the management of the expenditure in the food safety area.
Here’s a breakdown of where the money is going:
- Bovine Tuberculosis (TB)(about €62m);
- Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE)(about €12m );
- Rabies (€26m);
- Salmonellosis (about €17m);
- Bovine Brucellosis (about €10m);
- Classical Swine Fever (€2.5m);
- Avian Influenza (€2).
Compared to 2015, an increased amount (€7m) has been allocated in 2016 for the implementation of eradication and control of African Swine Fever programmes, mainly in the four Member States where the disease has occurred in 2013, according to Europa, the EU’s newsroom.
It states that EU co-financing has resulted in a continuous improvement of the animal health and also a decrease in the number of human cases of various zoonotic diseases, such as Salmonellosis (from 151.292 cases in 2007 to 80.677 cases in 2014).
Similar success was noted also for Brucellosis and other zoonotic diseases.
The co-funded programmes for oral vaccination against Rabies in wild animals have been very successful, according to Europa, with the EU achieving a level of Rabies eradication that has never been experienced anywhere else before.
The total number of Rabies cases at EU level in wild animals decreased significantly, from 814 in 2007 cases to just 216 cases in 2014 with very few human cases reported, it stated.
