The plan is amended annually and is produced for Defra by the Animal Health agency. It includes an overarching plan for dealing with a range of exotic animal diseases, as well as plans for responding to specific diseases including Foot and Mouth Disease, Avian Influenza and, for the first time, Rabies and Bluetongue.

The plan draws on lessons learned from disease outbreaks earlier this year including the Foot and Mouth disease outbreak during the summer, the outbreaks of Avian Influenza in February and May and the ongoing Bluetongue outbreak which began in September.

The Contingency Plan is subject to ongoing revision based on the latest scientific advice, developments in policy and comments from stakeholders and operational partners together with lessons identified from disease outbreaks.

The Contingency Plan is comprised of two parts:

• An Overview of Emergency Preparedness which provides details of how we have prepared for the operational response; and
  
• The Framework Response Plan which is an operational manual for those involved in managing the response and policy information by specific animal disease, setting out current policy on how each of these diseases will be dealt with.

Relevant policy information has been reviewed, updated and placed on the Defra public website and is referenced in the plan to ensure that stakeholders always have access to up to date policy information.

This Plan replaces Defra’s Exotic Animal Disease Generic Contingency Plan which was laid before Parliament on 13 December 2006.

It will be reviewed annually to meet the provisions of Section 14a of the Animal Health Act (AHA) 2002.

• Defra's Framework Response Plan for Exotic Animal Diseases (611 KB)
  
• Defra's overview of emergency preparedness for exotic animal diseases (527 KB)
  
• Table of major changes from version of the Exotic Animal Disease Generic Contingency Plan last laid before Parliament (21 KB)
  
• Defra issued its Contingency Plan for Exotic Animal Diseases for public consultation on 19 July.

Further Reading

- You can visit our Disease Information page by clicking here.