In 2016, the European Union adopted the ‘Animal Health Law’ and Article 25 lay down requirements for all operators (from production animals to companion animals) to ensure that their establishments receive regular animal health visits from a veterinarian.
These ‘animal health visits’ were to be implemented in all EU countries by April 2021 to strengthen animal health by improving disease prevention, through enhanced biosecurity, and early disease detection.
Regular animal health visits have great potential to improve animal health and welfare, reduce the use of antibiotics and enhancing simultaneously sustainability and profitability as well as to improve working conditions in terms of workload planning and predictability, especially in rural areas.
Thanks to the support of its members, FVE was able to investigate the situation and established a country score based on the criteria laid out in the FVE position paper. The updated report details now the situation in the United Kingdom and Switzerland!
The maximal score of 100 (the ideal situation according to the FVE position paper) was not achieved by any country. The Netherlands and Belgium head the ranking (respectively 78 and 77 points). Nine countries scored > 65, whereas eight countries had between 65 and 40 as well as eight countries < 40.
THE FULL REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE and BELOW IN THE DOWNLOAD SECTION!
A summary of the full report is in our brochure HERE or the poster HERE (FR and PL versions below).
