Risk Assessment of Import of Dogs and Cats to Iceland - with Special Attention to Guide-Dogs
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P. Willeberg Consulting 1450 Harbor Boulevard, Suite E West Sacramento, CA 95691 USA Risk Assessment of Import of dogs and cats to Iceland - with special attention to Guide-dogs 15 April 2019 1 Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ......................................................................................... 3 Background ........................................................................................................... 3 Imports of dogs and cats to Iceland ....................................................................... 4 Chapter 2. Risk Analysis methodology ................................................................... 5 Risk assessment methodology ............................................................................... 6 Risk Management ............................................................................................... 10 Risk Communication ............................................................................................ 10 Chapter 3. Hazard identification of relevant canine and feline transmissible pathogens ............................................................................................. 11 Listed by the Icelandic regulation ........................................................................ 11 Covered by international regulations (OIE) .......................................................... 12 Chapter 4 Risk assessment of relevant canine and feline transmissible pathogens ............................................................................................................. 15 Strategies to assess the risk for categories of transmissible pathogens and susceptible animals .............................................................................. 15 Risks associated with the import of Assistance dogs to Iceland ........................... 15 Risk assessment: Quantitative methodology ....................................................... 19 Chapter 5. Risk management ............................................................................... 21 APPENDIX 1. Risk assessment of Individual Diseases/Infections ......................... 24 Summary Tables ................................................................................................ 128 References ........................................................................................................ 136 2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION In the current trend of globalisation, animal health measures have increasing importance to facilitate safe international trade of animals and animal products, while avoiding unnecessary impediments to trade. In light of this, the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS Agreement) encourages the members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to base their sanitary measures on international standards, guidelines and recommendations, where they exist. The OIE is the WTO reference organisation for standards relating to animal health and zoonoses. The OIE publishes 2 codes (Terrestrial and Aquatic) and 2 manuals (Terrestrial and Aquatic) as the principle references for WTO members. The Terrestrial Animal Health Code (TAHC) aims to assure the sanitary safety of international trade in terrestrial animals and their products. Chapter 2.1. Import risk analysis describes the following relevant concepts, which are discussed in more details in the OIE Handbook of Import Risk Analysis for Animals and Animal Products, vol. 1 (2004): • Risk: means the likelihood of the occurrence and the likely magnitude of the biological and economic consequences of an adverse event or effect to animal or human health. • Risk analysis: means the process composed of hazard identification, risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. • Hazard identification: The hazard identification involves identifying the pathogenic agents which could potentially produce adverse consequences associated with the importation of a commodity. The hazards identified would be those appropriate to the species being imported, or from which the commodity is derived, and which may be present in the exporting country. It is then necessary to identify whether each hazard is already present in the importing country, and whether it is a notifiable disease or is subject to control or eradication in that country and to ensure that import measures are not more trade restrictive than those applied within the country. • Risk assessment: means the evaluation of the likelihood and the biological and economic consequences of entry, exposure, establishment and spread of a hazard. • Risk communication: means the interactive transmission and exchange of information and opinions throughout the risk analysis process concerning risk, risk-related factors and risk perceptions among risk assessors, risk managers, risk communicators, the general public and other interested parties. • Risk management: means the process of identifying, selecting and implementing measures that can be applied to reduce the level of risk. Background Due to their relative geographical isolation, the Icelandic animal populations have so far been free from many transmissible diseases. Imports of live animals during the past centuries have, however, in several cases brought diseases with them, such as sheep scabies, Scrapie, and the so-called Karakul diseases: Maedi/Visna, Jaagsiekte and paratuberculosis. The more recent experiences in Iceland with the three diseases Maedi/Visna in sheep, Infectious Pyrexia and the disease caused by a “new” strain of the bacterium Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus (ST2309) in horses, clearly demonstrate the susceptibility and vulnerability of the native animal populations in Iceland. Strict regulations on the import of live animals and animal products have therefore been established to minimize the risk of introducing non-indigenous infectious animal disease agents to Iceland. Import bans or strict quarantine conditions are therefore still applied to animals and animal products. During the quarantine period, tests to detect the occurrence of 3 various potentially pathogenetic organisms are carried out, and several examples of such detections have been published by Icelandic authorities and researchers, as can be found in the list of references in this report. International agreements on trade issues and the world-wide expansion of movement of people and products, as well as the economic and social benefits of tourism and international cooperation, however, have led to regular feasibility checks of the protective legislative measures in other countries with somewhat similar geographical conditions as Iceland, such as Australia and New Zealand. Imports of dogs and cats to Iceland In the area of import of dogs and cats to Iceland, a Risk Analysis was requested by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2001 from a working group established on behalf of the CVO. The group reported in September 2002 with a report written in Icelandic, which has been partly translated into English: “Risk Analysis regarding the import of dogs and cats to Iceland”. The report contains considerations about 54 listed diseases/infections (see Appendix 1). The introduction of this document includes the sentence: ”Chapter five deals with diseases that need to be taken into account when importing dogs and cats”. It may therefore be assumed, that this is de facto what is referred to in Regulation 935/2004 , paragraph 10: ”At the Isolation Facility, samples shall be taken to determine the existence or non-existence of infectious diseases according to the instructions of the Chief Veterinary Officer of Iceland at any given time”. The present report was commissioned by the Ministry of Industries and Innovation of Iceland (MII) in October 2017 with the following tasks: ”…. a review of the current Icelandic legislation and administrative regulation concerning the import of dogs and cats to Iceland, with special attention to possible modifications pertaining to the import of guide dogs, all with a view to preserve and maintain the current high level of protection of Icelandic animal health”. Also, “The report will be based on internationally accepted science-based guidelines for qualitative animal health risk analyses, including risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. The work will be conducted in close collaboration with Icelandic animal health specialists”. A visit to Iceland was carried out by the author on 11 – 15 December 2017, during which a series of meetings was held with staff members of MII, Keldur, MAST and the Quarantine Station at Keflavik to review and discuss the current import conditions for dogs and cats to Iceland, and to reveal past experience with introductions of potentially pathogenic agents. An additional visit took place on 16 – 19 September 2018 where various technical issues of importance and preliminary draft sections were discusses with the Icelandic specialists. Furthermore, a Skype session was conducted on 15 November 2018, and on a few additional occasions, meetings with Dr. Hreinsson took place in Copenhagen. The author gratefully acknowledges all of the Icelandic specialists for their significant contributions to this report. 4 CHAPTER 2. RISK ANALYSIS METHODOLOGY The internationally accepted methodology of Risk Analysis is to be applied to this assignment, and its contents can be illustrated in Figure 1: Figure 1. The four components of Risk Analysis (From OIE TAHC, 2017) • Hazard Identification: the identification of the relevant potential diseases/infections