THE DPI ARE STILL VACCINATING YOUNG FOALS WHEN IT DOES NOT OFFER THEM ANY IMMUNITY ???????

Trying to sort out confusion?
ProteqFLU-Te
Application number
EMEA/V/C/074
Marketing authorisation holder
MERIAL, France
Name of the product
ProteqFLU-TeActive substances

Live recombinant canarypox viruses expressing the haemagglutin HA gene from the equine influenza virus strains A/equi-2/Kentucky/94 (USA representative) and A/equi-2/Newmarket/293 (European representative) + tetanus toxoid.

Parental organism
Canarypox virus
Transgene(s)
Haemagglutin HA gene from the equine influenza virus strains A/equi-2/Kentucky/94 (American strain) and A/equi-2/Newmarket/2/93 (European strain)
Treated organism

Horses

Indication(s)Active immunisation of horses of 4 months of age or older against equine influenza to reduce clinical signs and virus excretion after infection and against tetanus to prevent mortality.

Administration route(s)
Intramuscular
Type of authorisation
Centralised at european level
Legal frame
Council regulation (EEC) 2309/93 (full text in English or in French) and the environmental safety requirements laid down by European Directive 90/220/EEC, part C and the Royal Decree of 18/12/1998, article 22 (full text of the Decree in French - in Dutch)

Competent authority
EMEA/European Commission
Belgian advisory body
Belgian Biosafety Council
Date of the meeting of the Belgian Biosafety Council
4/02/2002

EMEA (CVMP) opinionpositive : abstract in english (link to Web site of EMEA)CVMP opinion date13/11/2002European Commission authorisation date6/03/2003European Commission authorisation numberEU/2/03/038/001-2-3-4European Commission decisionPharmacos linkEuropean Public Assessment Report (including Product information leaflet and Summary of product characteristics in French, in Dutch or in English)EPAR (link to Web site of EMEA)Notifications to Belgian authorities while in Research and Development stageB/BE/00/V15

The cough that stopped a nation

An investigation by Robert Wainwright and Matthew Moore suggests sloppiness may be to blame for the horse flu outbreak.
A little after lunchtime on August 15, six of the senior staff at the quarantine centre at Eastern Creek in Sydney sat around a table to kick around a bunch of annoyingly small problems with site safety.

For an hour, they picked their way through an agenda littered with failings no one would expect at the front line of Australia's defence against exotic disease: open waste drains, broken pathways, dangerous tree branches, air-conditioning units shedding fibreglass particles and the horse surgery left a mess by visiting vets.

There were items on delays in staff training, poor labelling of chemicals and the need for updated risk assessments.

But in one of the quarantine stalls outside the meeting room, a much bigger problem was incubating. The prized shuttle stallion sire Encosta de Lago, from the Irish racing stud Coolmore, was running a temperature and had a slight cough. Two days later, when a stablehand noticed the problem, he had a precautionary swab taken.

Read more. This article goes over 6 pages.

Horse transporter says EI lockdown has cost him big

There's more criticism of how the State Government is handling Tasmania's equine influenza scare.

A horse transport operator, Vern Poke, says the two month lockdown has cost him and many horse owners thousands of dollars.


A ban on horse imports is to be partially lifted from Wednesday, but Mr Poke says the Department of Primary Industries doesn't understand the flu threat, or the industry.


"EI broke out in Sydney, look how far we are from Sydney and what happened at Smithton here a fortnight ago, that was just absolute ludicrous," said Mr Poke.


"Why would you close Tasmania down for a horse with a common cold?


"Now you're going to find people in Tasmania are not going to report horses with common colds for fear of being closed down again."

EI outbreak impossible, industry told in letter

BARELY two years before equine influenza paralysed Australia's horse industry and hobbled this year's Melbourne Cup, the Federal Government gave a written assurance Australia's quarantine protocols were so stringent that an outbreak of the disease "could not occur".
In a letter to the Australian Racing Board (ARB) in May 2005, then agriculture minister Warren Truss dismissed concerns about a growing risk of EI getting into Australia because of moves to replace staff in the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service with private personnel.

The letter, uncovered by an Age investigation into the causes of the outbreak, emerged just days before next week's running of the first Melbourne Cup in memory without NSW and Queensland horses and the resumption next week of the federal inquiry into the entry of the disease into Australia.

Read more.

News from Tassie

Folks

Interstate horses.

The stuff about bringing a horse into Tasmania from the non-infected states is going live onto our website shortly. Below is updated bit of our website and attached is the permit application form and advice on how to complete etc .

Bringing a horse into Tasmania

The ban on interstate horses coming to Tasmania has been partially lifted. From 7 November, horses will be able to enter Tasmania, under permit, from Victoria, WA, SA and the NT.

There are no plans at this stage to allow horses into Tasmania from NSW, Qld or the ACT. The requirements that must be met before a permit will be issued are different for vaccinated and non-vaccinated horses.

It’s important that the application for a permit is made by the person responsible for the horse after it arrives in Tasmania. The permit conditions include an undertaking that the horse will be closely monitored for at least 5 days after arrival, so carriers (and in some cases owners) are in no position to make that undertaking.

The permit application form and advice relevant to the permit are available online (link1) or by contacting the disease control centre on (03) 6233 6875. Anyone with a query about the permit process is encouraged to contact us on the same phone number.

The turnaround time for permit applications will depend on how many applications we receive. The process for non-vaccinated horses is generally more straightforward than for vaccinated horses, so the time taken should be less. Please ensure that you provide your daytime contact phone number so that we can contact you to discuss any issues with your application.

Email addresses

I've had a few complaints that people on this email database are being emailed by others on the list - mostly spreading information (rumour in a couple of cases!). Please don't do this. I've started to send the emails out "bcc" to help protect people's privacy.

Disease control centre

Is not operating over the weekend. The all hours hotline for reporting any signs of EI (1800 675 888) will be operational. If you call it, you'll get our security firm and they contact our on-duty vet immediately.

Cheers
Barry Calderbank