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Vaccine Banks
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The motivation for change to the European Community FMD control policy was a desire
to achieve high livestock health status and harmonisation of disease control prior
to the advent of the Single Market on 1 January 1993; this required free trade in
livestock within the member states.
Up to this time the non-vaccinating countries had maintained a policy of pre-importation
testing with quarantine for animals from vaccinating countries. By 1990, eight European
Community Member States still performed mass annual FMD vaccination of cattle, and Spain
and Portugal also vaccinated some sheep.
Thus, Directive 90/423/EC, in addition to addressing disease control, also paved the way
for eradication of FMD virus from the Community. The consideration of the radical option
of a non-vaccination policy was a direct result of the success of the annual vaccination
campaigns conducted in Europe since the 1950s. Prophylactic vaccination, coupled with a
ban in 1978 of all imports from non-FMD-free countries of beef that had not been deboned
and 'matured', had virtually eliminated FMD outbreaks by 1990.
The decision to adopt a policy of non-vaccination was also in part a result of two
reports made to the Commission of the European Community in 1989. One report identified
FMD vaccine/research laboratories and the use of poorly inactivated vaccine as the likely
source of 13/34 of the primary outbreaks between 1977 and 1987. The other was a
cost-benefit analysis which showed that it would be cheaper to compensate for 13 primary
and 150 secondary outbreaks over a 10-year period than to continue mass prophylactic
vaccination Community-wide.
The other perceived advantage of the altered policy was the potential for international
trade, most importantly with the North and Central American trading block, Australasia
and Japan, all of whom were FMD-free.
The experience of the EU since 1991 has confirmed that the decision to adopt a
non-vaccination policy was correct. Although the EU has experienced three separate
incursions of FMD in the period 1991-1996 (Italy in 1993; Greece in 1994 and 1996), in
each instance the disease was eradicated without recourse to vaccination. The total
number of primary and secondary outbreaks fell between the lowest and the middle
estimates that had been made in the original cost-benefit analysis. Overall, the
financial benefits to the EU of FMD-free status have far outweighed the costs incurred
in stamping out new introductions of the disease.
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