BFSA Director's orders on measures to deal with livestock plague are lawful

The official position of the agency also explains that according to Art. 47, para. 1 of the Law, “The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) applies measures for the prevention, containment and eradication of some particularly contagious diseases, specified in an order of the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forests”. The Order of the Minister on this Article, which lists these particularly contagious diseases, including the plague of small ruminants, is No RD 09-641 / 06.07.2006.

According to Art. 50 para. 1 of the Veterinary Medicine Law (VML) "Diseases referred to in Art. 47, para. 1 occurring in the country are subject to mandatory disclosure and registration by the BFSA Executive Director.

According to par. 2 of the same Article "The measures shall be imposed by an order of the BFSA Executive Director and should include culling of animals, prohibitions on the movement of people, animals, raw materials and food of animal origin, feed materials, compound feed, objects through which contagious causative agents can be transmitted. "

The orders of the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry are issued on the grounds of Art. 126, para. 2 of the VML, according to which "In the case of particularly dangerous contagious diseases, including the diseases referred to in Article 47, paragraph 1, the spreading of which may cause significant economic losses, the measures under paragraph 1 shall be introduced on part of the territory or the whole territory of the country at a proposal of the Executive Director of the Bulgarian Food Safety Authority with an order of the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry in coordination with the Minister of Interior”.

On the basis of the expansion of the outbreaks of plague and the suggestion of the Executive Director of the BFSA the Protection Order № RD 09-647 / 16.07.2018 of the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Roumen Porozhanov was issued, which has been coordinated with the Minister of Interior Valentin Radev, introducing preventive measures throughout the country.

Regarding the allegations that a Central Epizootic Council should be set up, lawyers are clear that this is only necessary in cases of contagious animal diseases that directly affect human health. In this case, the plague of small ruminants is not a zoonosis - it is not transmitted to humans and is not dangerous to their health but could cause great economic losses.