The Zoonoses Order 1989

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

Section 29 of the Animal Health Act 1981 (“the Act”) empowers Ministers, with a view to reducing the risk to human health from any organism carried in animals or poultry, to make an order designating any organism which, in their opinion, constitutes such a risk and to apply any provision of the Act to that organism.

This Order, which revokes and re-enacts, with amendments, the provisions of the Zoonoses Order 1975, designates (as did the 1975 Order) organisms of the genus salmonella and the genus brucella for the purposes of section 29 of the Act (article 4(1)) and applies certain provisions of the Act (including powers relating to the slaughter of poultry) to those organisms with a view to reducing any risk to human health from them (article 4(2) and Schedule 1).

The Order continues to provide for –

(a) the decleration as an infected place of premises on which there is or has been an animal or any poultry in which a designated organism is or was present and the imposition, by notice, of movement restrictions and isolation requirements (article 6); and

(b) the cleansing and disinfection of premises and vehicles in which a designated organism is known or suspected to have been present (article 7).

The changes of substance made by this Order are the inclusion of provisions which –

(a) empower a Ministry inspector who has entered any premises in exercise of his powers under section 63(9) or section 64 of the Act to carry out such inquiries, examinations and tests and to take such samples as are necessary to ascertain whether any designated organisms are or have been present there (article 5); and

(b) extend the requirement for making a report concerning the identification of a designated organism in a sample taken from certain animals, birds etc. (article 8 and Schedule 2).