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According to the FVO report about the outcome of an audit in Bulgaria, carried out 19 to 26 November 2012, with the objective of evaluating the implementation of Council Directive 2001/89//EC and in particular the measures contained in the Bulgarian programme for control and monitoring of classical swine fever (CSF), the failure to register all pig holdings and pig movements, the under-implementation of certain parts of the inspection and testing programme, the lack of epidemiological analysis of the results and the lack of targeting of wild boar sampling undermine the ability of the competent authority to verify the effectiveness of the vaccination programme and to demonstrate freedom from CSF.
An effective central database is in place and kept updated for the majority of pig movements. However, as in 2010 a lack of registration of all small farms and significant gaps in recording of movements of pigs, particularly on to these farms compromise the effectiveness of the pig identification and traceability system.
Although most of the domestic pigs are kept on holdings meeting the minimum biosecurity requirements in EU legislation the other 18% of the pigs remain the population most at risk for classical swine fever. Whilst the inspection programme for domestic pigs was mostly implemented in accordance with the CSF plan the under-implementation in pig herds with low levels of biosecurity and the sometimes unreliable results of the verification of official controls undermine the effectiveness of the programme. Substantial amendments were made to the wild boar vaccination programmes for 2011 and 2012 without the approval by the Commission and the report to the Commission for the first half of 2012 was inaccurate. There are indications of poor effectiveness of the vaccination campaigns which undermines the overall effectiveness of the vaccination programme. The competent authority can generally have confidence in the laboratory test results. However, test methods have periodically been unavailable in the national reference laboratory due to a lack of consumables following insufficient procurements of important reagents and kits. With regard to pig meat potentially dispatched to other Member State the overall farm inspection, sampling and certification systems in place meet the requirements in EU legislation. However, the system in place for pre-slaughter certification does not ensure that the requirements of Article 6(1) (b) are met for all batches of pigs sent to slaughter. In general, extensive control measures are in place to monitor and control classical swine fever in domestic and wild pig populations. However, the implementation of the relevant EU legislation does not cover all pig holdings and recommendations 1, 2, 3 and 6 in the 2010 FVO report have not been satisfactorily addressed.
The FVO makes a number of recommendations to the Bulgarian competent authorities, aimed at rectifying the shortcomings identified and enhancing the implementing and control measures in place.
Wednesday April 24, 2013/ FVO/ European Union.
http://ec.europa.eu
