A message from Tasmanian DPI

With the horse flu outbreak now over - well, the last "infected" zone in Queensland is scheduled to go* *"Green" (unrestricted) by 20 March - there'll hopefully be no need for any more EI updates to be emailed out to you. You supplied your email address for the specific purpose of receiving these updates and no other purpose, so we'll be wiping the
emailing list shortly.

Eradicating a full blown outbreak of horse flu has been a remarkable achievement. Almost all horse owners and others in the horse sector did everything absolutely right, in terms of their biosecurity responsibilities, during the outbreak - and that, more than anything else, made the eradication campaign a success. On behalf of the EI disease control team here in Tasmania, I'd like to thank you and your fellow horse lovers for the significant part you played in keeping this disease out of Tassie.

Also, thanks to those of you who organised the public meetings or who passed on our EI updates around your clubs, the blogsites and elsewhere. That helped keep the horse community up-to-date and also countered some of the misinformation that popped up every now and then.

Finally, thanks to those of you who contacted me for information during the outbreak. I hope the answers you got were what you needed and, importantly, got back to you quickly.

I trust that life has returned to normal for you and your horse. And that good biosecurity continues to happen at events, on your property etc even when this EI outbreak has become a distant memory !!

Best wishes

Barry Calderbank
Communications
Biosecurity and Product Integrity
DPIW Hobart
ph 6233 6519 or 0407 858 293