Roger Gale – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Gale on 2016-03-16.
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to (a) prevent the spread of the outbreak of canine babesiosis and (b) deter the impact from mainland Europe of infected animals carrying tick-borne viruses.
George Eustice
Experts at the Animal & Plant Health Agency (APHA) and Public Health England (PHE) are working together to investigate the locally acquired cases of canine babesiosis in Essex. Environmental tick control through vegetation management can be difficult to achieve and the use of acaricides in the environment is prohibited. The most effective control is for owners to treat dogs promptly for ticks.
Ticks are associated with a range of vertebrate hosts, including livestock, wildlife and wild birds, so we cannot prevent all these routes of entry. In addition, several UK species of tick are capable of transmitting various diseases which like Babesia canis are also not notifiable.
Livestock and horses imported from mainland Europe are certified to be healthy and should therefore be free of ticks and we recommend that people treat pet dogs with an appropriate treatment that kills ticks as soon as they attach, prior to bringing them from Europe.
