Ireland achieves Aujeszky's Disease Free Status

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, TD, is delighted to announce that Ireland has achieved Aujeszky's Disease-free status following the success of the National Aujeszky's Disease Control and Eradication Programme.

The objective of this programme, launched in 2002, was to eliminate Aujeszky's Disease from the national pig herd and to obtain official Aujeszky's free status. This status will be of significant benefit to the entire Irish pig sector by recognising the health standard of the national herd, by protecting our access to export markets and by allowing Ireland to exploit new market opportunities. As an Aujeszky's Disease free region Irish herdowners can now export live pigs to other AD free regions without the high cost of compulsory isolation, herd surveillance and blood testing. Ireland recently presented the results of its programme to all EU Member States. These results demonstrated that the objective has been reached and that Aujeszky's disease in Ireland had been eradicated.