EU earmarks funds for rabies and mad cow controls

The European Union today earmarked €185m to eradicate animal diseases such as rabies and mad cow disease across the 25-member bloc.

“Healthy animals are the key to safe food,” EU Health and Consumer Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said in a statement.

The funds are earmarked for 129 programs across the EU working to eradicate, control and monitor animal diseases, including salmonella, scrapie, rabies and mad cow disease.

Programs related to diseases that might be transmitted to humans were prioritised, the statement said. The programs do not include measures against bird flu.

“Currently we don’t have bird flu in the Union and so it’s not provided for here,” said EU Commission spokesman Philip Tod.

“We have separate funding for the testing and the funding for the avian influenza,” he added.

Tod said if bird flu would break out in the EU, funding would be made for the member states to fight the disease.