EFA Equestrian events: Light at the end of the tunnel?????

A meeting of members of the Consultative Committee on Emergency Animal Disease (CCEAD) and the National Management Group (NMG) supervising the Equine Influenza containment and eradication effort met in Sydney yesterday to review what had been done and achieved so far and what actions needed to follow, including vaccinations where appropriate.

The outcome of the meeting included a list of immediate action items and a number of issues that required a more strategic response.

It appeared that there was a better appreciation of the impact that the crisis has had on the sport and the horse industry and that there is now more focus on returning the industry to some level of ‘normality’ as soon as possible. This needs to be weighed against requirements for a successful eradication of the virus.

The “Proof of Freedom” Working Group of the CCEAD has been meeting to develop protocols that define requirements for the movement of horses across zones in infected States and into non-infected ‘jurisdictions’ (States and Territories). These will replace protocols that have been in place so far but are expected to be still rather onerous on organisers and competitors.

The new protocols should become available shortly after meetings taking place at the end of next week and are expected to apply for December 2007 and January 2008. Provided the EI containment and eradication effort continues on its promising course, conditions for horse movements and events could progressively become more relaxed from February onwards.

Conditions for movements and events WITHIN purple zones in NSW are likely to be tightened slightly in the near future to ensure that only horses gather that have been adequately vaccinated or have recovered from infection and are therefore immune.

As far as vaccination is concerned, the meeting encouraged organisers to restrict event participation to horses from within the zone in which the events take place. Events that are part of the Olympic preparation program will usually require cross-zone and/or interstate participation and particular conditions will apply.

Organisers of these events are requested to bring forward their entry closing dates to at least eight weeks before the start of the event so that horses requiring vaccination can be identified and inoculated in time for the event. For example, for events held in the purple zone (e.g. at SIEC), horses coming from other zones or from interstate would require vaccination. The first dose has to be given at least six weeks before the events and a booster not later than two weeks before the event. State DPIs will cooperate in the vaccination effort to ensure that these events achieve the required participation.

The first of these events will be the Olympic Team Dressage Assessment 03 – 05 February 2008 at the Sydney International Equestrian Centre.