By Desmond Hinton-Beales - 11th October 2011
All animal health crises of the last 15 years have been detected by vets at the slaughterhouse
Bernard van Goethem, director of DG SANCO
The EU has been urged to increase investment in tackling animal-to-human diseases.
The call came at a seminar, which was jointly organised in the European parliament by the commission's DG SANCO, the European food safety authority (EFSA), and the European centre for disease control (ECDC).
The discussion examined the issue of zoonoses – diseases transmitted from animals to humans.
EFSA executive director Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle said that European level action against salmonella, one of the most common zoonoses, has nearly halved the incidence rate between 2004 and 2009 and is a "success of Europe".
However, she added that the EU could do better on tackling other zoonotic diseases, but stressed that Europe compares very well with other regions of the world, especially the US where salmonella is on the increase.
ECDC director Marc Sprenger described salmonella as a disease of "most concern", and said that reducing the number of cases among farm animals leads to a reduction of cases in humans.
Pia Makela, head of EFSA's biological monitoring unit agreed. She said that mandatory vaccination of chickens had been introduced for member states with salmonella problems, highlighting figures showing that 65 per cent of human salmonella cases come from the eggs.
Bernard van Goethem, director for veterinary and international affairs at DG SANCO, said that the last 10 years have seen successes and highlighted the previous eradication of rabies in Europe as a "great achievement".
Van Goethem was keen to stress the dangers of zoonoses, pointing to the 46 deaths as a result of E.coli earlier in the year as the worst crisis of its kind Europehas faced in relation to human deaths.
"Prevention is cheaper than cure", said the DG SANCO director, who added that member state funding for salmonella has increased significantly in the past eight years, and that the effects of that spending are visible.
Van Goethem also said that the World Health Organisation and the UN's food and agriculture organisation are "keen to learn from the EU experience".
Arie Havelaar, who sits on the EFSA's Biohaz panel, warned that EU figures on food borne diseases are merely the "tip of the iceberg" as only one in 50 cases are reported.
Havelaar recommended control measures on European farms, and said that EU interventions could save billions of euros.
Host of the seminar, parliament vice-president Dagmar Roth-Behrendt asked why current EU measures to reduce salmonella in pigs do not take place on the farm.
Van Goethem responded by saying that "all animal health crises of the last 15 years have been detected by vets at the slaughterhouse", and that control of salmonella in pigs is the "next challenge".
