0
APHIS is establishing this review process, as directed by Congress in the FY16 appropriations bill, to increase assurances that our import processes appropriately mitigate the risk of foreign animal diseases. APHIS remains confident in our rigorous, science-based, analytical approach to assessments and regulatory status for countries and regions. This new review process will help us maintain a high level of vigilance and adjust safeguards when new information or situations arise.
APHIS will maintain a strategic plan for conducting reviews of APHIS-recognized animal health statuses of foreign regions. Each year, APHIS will determine the number of regions it will select for review during the following year, which will vary depending on availability of resources, travel funds, and any emerging issues and/or unforeseen circumstances.
The new process is based on the following 3-tier system and applicable for:
Tier1 - includes regions not recognized as free, but permitted to export certain animals or products under specific mitigating conditions.
Tier 2 - includes regions recognized as free, but where special restrictions are applied due to proximity or trade relationships with disease-affected regions.
Tier 3 - includes regions recognized as free of the specified disease.
The new process is applicable for regions that have not reported disease outbreaks or pest occurrences for which the region is recognized since APHIS’ most recent evaluation.
APHIS will prioritize its review of regions within each of these three tiers based on the following five risk-based criteria: disease factors, region factors, commodity factors, time factors and other risk based factors.
Thursday January 19, 2017/ APHIS_USDA/ United states.
https://www.aphis.usda.gov
