DEFRA Welfare Strategy - animals need medicines
Prevention is better than cure. This is a major theme of the
DEFRA Outline
Animal Health and Welfare Strategy published today. And animal
medicines will play an important role in achieving this objective. Uptake
of preventive animal medicine is named as one of the ways of measuring how
successfully the outline strategy is implemented.
Welcoming the publication of the outline strategy, which focuses in the
main on the welfare of farm livestock, NOAH chairman Bill Hird said it
includes measures which will give even more support to the work of
RUMA which has long
been working towards the responsible use of animal medicines on farms.
“We are very pleased to see that the very positive role preventive
medicine can play in keeping animals healthy is an integral part of the
strategy,” said Mr Hird. “But sometimes treatment is still needed, even with
the best farming and veterinary practice. We are pleased that the strategy
also states that ‘it is right to expect animal keepers will have access to
the products that are needed to treat disease when it affects their
animals’.”
NOAH will study the outline strategy in more detail and will be
considering how it can work with its partners in improving the health and
welfare of Britain’s animals. “We look forward to helping this outline
strategy evolve into a more detailed plan - and to seeing how it will
benefit not only farm livestock, but also the health and welfare of the
nation’s pets and horses,” said Mr Hird.
15 July 2003
Notes for Editors
For further information contact Phil Sketchley or Alison Glennon at NOAH, tel. +44 (0)20 8367 3131,
or visit the NOAH website.
The National Office of Animal
Health was formed on 1 January 1986 to represent the UK companies which
research, develop, manufacture and market licensed animal health
products. The association has 32 corporate members and 14 associate
members. In 2002 NOAH's members accounted for well over 90% of the £389
million UK animal health market
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