The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will invest $27.1 million into the purchase of a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccine for the National Animal Vaccine and Veterinary Countermeasures Bank.
The purchase would give the government the means to respond to outbreaks of the disease among animals. This comes about as a result of the 2018 Farm Bill, and more specifically, the Animal Disease and Disaster Prevention, Surveillance and Rapid Response Act within it. Created by U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX), that bill created the vaccine bank and disaster response program, among other measures.
“As we have seen with the current pandemic, outbreaks can have devastating effects,” Klobuchar said. “When animal disease outbreaks hit, as they have in Minnesota with avian influenza, the impact is felt by farmers, rural communities, and our entire food supply chain. That’s why I worked to ensure that animal disease preparedness would be an important part of the 2018 Farm Bill. This critical investment will ensure our farmers and livestock producers are better able to respond to a potential outbreak.”
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), a fellow member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, pointed to the 2015 avian flu outbreak as an example of what could happen without proper preparations in place. She noted that by purchasing disease vaccines, future animal disease outbreaks could be prevented — a common concern for livestock producers and veterinarians alike. Still, she hoped this funding would serve as a stepping stone to something more encompassing.
“We need to adopt a ‘One Health’ approach—the idea that human and animal health are linked, and that they should be studied together to prevent and respond to disease outbreaks,” Smith said. “I’m making a bipartisan push to advance this idea in the Senate, so preparedness efforts meet the needs of all people, all ages, and all communities.”
To this end, Smith has also introduced the Advancing Emergency Preparedness Through One Health Act, which would advance coordination between examiners of human and animal health alike by requiring the Department of Health and Human Services and USDA to undertake that One Health approach with other agencies.