This week the Animal and Plant Inspection Service (APHIS) issued a proposed rule to amend the National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) to “condition indemnity for low pathogenicity avian influenza on adherence to biosecurity plans, clarify existing provisions of the regulations, fix editorial errors, and align the regulations more closely with current producer practices.”
The NPIP is a voluntary Federal-State-Industry mechanism that helps to control and prevent varying poultry diseases. It creates disease control standards that States, flocks, hatcheries, dealers, and plants may abide by, and doing so identifies them in this program and alters consumers of their participation and degree of success.
In 2020, new regulations regarding Avian Influenza (AI) and New Castle disease necessitated revisions to the NPIP.
Below is a list of the changes APHIS wishes to implement in the proposed rule:
- Adding a definition of the “National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) Program Standards”
- Updating the definitions of “fowl typhoid or typhoid” and “Pullorum disease or pullorum,” among other terms
- Defining Salmonella Enteritidis
- Requiring authorized laboratories to report infected flocks rather than reactors
- Amending the definition of “hatchery” and “multiplier breeding flock”
- Clarifying the definition of “reactor”
- Revising the Salmonella Pullorum, Gallinarum, and Enteritidis nomenclature
- Revising Section B “Bacteriological Examination Procedures”
- Revising Section D “Molecular Examination Procedures”
All comments on this proposal are due by August 12, 2024. The proposed changes can be viewed at the Federal Register notice found here.
