Conference told animal health law will focus on financing prevention

THE European Commission is to launch an animal health law next year, a conference was told in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan.

Health and consumer policy commissioner John Dalli, who announced the move, said this legislation should move from a position of financing losses of disease outbreaks to one of financing prevention.

Mr Dalli said this future legislation requires a culture change to consider outlays for prevention programmes as an investment to save much heavier expenditure to combat disease outbreaks.