The highest authority in controlling animal diseases lies with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
As a central government authority the Finnish Food Authority plans, guides, develops and supervises the combat against animal diseases both nationally and regionally (State Veterinarians). In addition, the Finnish Food Authority is responsible for statistics and reporting related to animal diseases. In the Åland Islands, the authority is the Government of Åland.
On local level, the planning and implementation of the control of the contagious animal diseases are responsibility of the Municipal Veterinary Officers in municipalities or joint municipal boards, and the Official Meat Inspection Veterinarians in the slaughterhouses.
Fighting animal diseases in cases of animal imports from outside the EU is mainly the remit of Border veterinarians who carry out veterinary border inspections. Control of animal imports from the EU countries is the responsibility of Finnish Food Authority (State Veterinarians), Finnish Custom and Municipal Veterinary Officers.
In control of animal health, there are no other competent authorities apart from the Municipal Veterinary Officer in his own area. However, veterinarians other than veterinary officers are also obliged to notify suspected cases of contagious animal diseases and to initiate the necessary preliminary measures on the farm to prevent the disease from spreading. In an effort to prevent the spread of an animal disease, official assistance may be requested from the Police, Rescue Services or the Finnish Defence Forces. In such an event, Finnish Food Authority coordinates the concerted effort.
Planning control measures and preparedness for serious animal diseases
Finnish Food Authority draws up an annual plan of monitoring programmes for animal diseases that must be controlled by law. The risk-based nature of the control measures is acknowledged when preparing the monitoring programmes by targeting the sample-taking on animals in which the infection or antibodies to the pathogen are most likely to be found, or animals in which an infection would pose the greatest risk of its spreading to other farms.
Control of animal diseases is also effected under statutory disease control programmes, as well as at every farm visit by a veterinarian and during inspections in slaughterhouses. In case of suspected contagious animal diseases arising from veterinary inspections or laboratory tests, Finnish Food Authority has drawn up directions for national and regional contingency plans. The contingency plans have been produced for cases of the highly infectious and combatable animal diseases most likely to pose a threat to the health of Finnish animals and the spread of which in the Finnish animal population would cause the greatest losses to animal production. The contingency plans are updated every year, if necessary. Regular preparedness exercises are carried out to ensure that the plans work in practice.
Reporting of animal disease outbreaks and monitoring results
Regular reports on the incidences of animal diseases and control results and measures are submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the EU Commission, the European Food Safety Authority EFSA, and the World Organisation for Animal Health WOAH.