The international organization that tracks global animal disease outbreaks and works to improve animal health has rebranded itself with an acronym that aligns with its full name in English. The World Organisation for Animal Health has been commonly known as the OIE dating back to its founding in 1924 as the Office International des Épizooties. As… Read More

Update: On February 4, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) said it had confirmed the presence of high pathogenic avian influenza (AI), subtype H5N1, in a commercial flock in western Nova Scotia and notified the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) of the positive AI finding. Initial tests were conducted on January 30 after the farm… Read More

An important step forward was taken May 27 for the Canadian beef industry, as the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recognized Canada as negligible risk for Bovine Spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). “The recommendation by the OIE’s Scientific Commission to grant Canada negligible risk status for BSE is a historic closing of the BSE era for… Read More

The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) is strongly encouraging countries to partake in an assessment of veterinary services, developed in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), The assessment, called the Performance of Veterinary Services (PVS) tool, is designed to assist countries in assessing current levels of veterinary service performance to identify weaknesses and strengths, as… Read More

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) recently released its report on the 19th case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), concluding the likely cause was contamination of feed on-farm. “The carry-over of a small amount of residual contaminated feed associated with an earlier case (17) on the same birth farm is the most plausible explanation for… Read More