Cardiff Animal Health Office To Play Major Role
From July 2010, the Cardiff Animal Health Divisional Office (AHDO) will be solely dedicated to tracing the movements and locations of animals involved in TB outbreaks across the whole of Great Britain – a vital part of Animal Healt’s work in helping to manage the spread of this disease.
It is anticipated that all of the TB tracing work currently being carried out in other Animal Health offices will have moved to Cardiff by October 2010. After this time the centre will start to assume responsibility for tracing other animal diseases in addition to bovine TB.
Animal Health‟s Chief Executive, Catherine Brown, said that the new facility would be a centre of excellence, supporting Animal Health staff across Wales, England and Scotland.
“By centralising our tracings work in Cardiff we will speed up the tracings process and make it more cost effective,” she said. “The centre will also provide a more consistent approach, enabling us to manage disease outbreaks more efficiently.”
The changes to the function of the Cardiff AHDO mean that it will no longer act as the Divisional Office for South East Wales. The Cardiff administrative and management functions will transfer to the Carmarthen office in spring 2010, although both Cardiff and its Llandrindod Wells sub-office will remain as bases for veterinary and technical staff in South East Wales. The administrative change should not cause disruption for farmers and livestock owners who currently use Cardiff as their local point of contact.
Livestock owners, stakeholders and veterinary practices will be notified in writing prior to these changes taking affect, and they will be provided with new details for accessing services via post, telephone and e-mail.
With Strangles Awareness Week just around the corner (5-11 May), vets are being encouraged to share a survey about the disease with their horse-owning clients.
