Rabies regulations

[Tag]

The committee set up to review the effectiveness of the rabies regulations has just reported that they are unnecessarily harsh and restrictive, according to Radio 4 this morning. So, there is hope that the current procedures should be relaxed sometime soon.

[Deimos]

The UK will almost certainly try and retain its derogation. The most likely change they will allow is a reduction of the 6 month delay after a blood test to 3 months. They will almost certainly be seeking to retain the requirement for a blood test (as they are paranoid about "duff" vaccine batches) and would not be happy with the rest of Europe's 21 days. This is despite the rest of the EU having clearly demonstrated that the 21 days and no blood test work fine.

However, as to whether they will be allowed to keep any derogation is another matter - which I guess depends on how strong their scientific justifications are. In some regards, if they show strong scientific justifications it will show the remainder of the EU is "taking big risks", and if they are allowed to retain the derogation it is a bit like the EU agreeing their own procedures are too lax to be safe.

In practice, this time round it is likely that only the delay after a blood test will change and it will be next time the derogation is reviewed that the procedures will be dropped completely and the UK forced into line with the remainder of Europe.

Ian