Handbook on Import Risk Analysis for animals and animal products: introduction and qualitative risk analysis

The importation of animals and their products involves a degree of disease risk to the importing country, represented by one or several diseases or pathogenic agents.\ud \ud OIE Member Countries are strongly encouraged to base their sanitary measures on international standards such as the OIE Terrestrial Code and the OIE Aquatic Code. In the absence of relevant standards or when Members choose to adopt a higher level of protection than that provided by such standards, science-based risk analysis is essential to determine whether the importation of a particular commodity poses a significant risk to human or animal health and, if so, what sanitary measures could be adopted to reduce that risk to an acceptable level. However, the level of protection applied to imports must not be different to that applied to products within the domestic market.\ud \ud In this regard, the principal aim of import risk analysis is to provide importing countries with an objective and defensible method of assessing the disease risks associated with the importation of animals and their products.\ud \ud With the support of the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise 'G. Caporale' at Teramo (an OIE Collaborating Centre), an OIE ad hoc Group of internationally renowned experts has developed a comprehensive treatise on the subject.\ud \ud Volume I of this handbook introduces the concepts of import risk analysis and discusses qualitative risk analysis while Volume II addresses quantitative risk analysis. The key issues in the discipline are explained within the frameworks provided by the World Trade Organization Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and the chapters in both Codes on risk analysis.\ud \ud The handbook will provide practical guidance to Veterinary Services confronted with the need to analyse the risks posed by imports, to ensure that stakeholders, risk analysts and decision-makers can be confident that the disease risks posed have been identified and can be managed effectively. The handbook will also be useful as a training aid to address the critical need for capacity building in this discipline