Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency merge to create new agency   Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) will merge on 1 April 2011 to create the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA). Both agencies work to combat animal diseases, and bringing together their services, expertise and scientific capability will create a stronger organisation capable of providing a range of vital services to the livestock farming industry and related sectors. Importantly, the merger will increase the resilience of the combined agency's operations in a difficult financial climate. Joining the two organisations creates new and wider opportunities to identify more cost effective, flexible and robust ways of working. AHVLA will work across Great Britain on behalf of Defra, the Welsh Assembly Government, and the Scottish Government. It will also have some UK functions and many international roles ‐ for example as the international reference laboratory for important farm animal diseas ...

US Jockey Club Calls for Progress Towards Medication-Free Racing

Two vacancies open for veterinary surgeons to join the RCVS VN Council

BVA and FVE fight to save vets' right to dispense medicines

NEHS Survey leaflets

Defra Review of 2010 EIA Outbreaks

Researchers in Switzerland have their eye on clostridial toxins as the possible cause of Equine Atypical Myopathy (EAM), a seasonal, pasture-associated muscle disorder. The disorder is characterised by a generalised complete degeneration of muscle fibres, which leads to sudden death due to collapse of the cardio-respiratory system in over 90 per cent of the cases. Writing in the latest Gluck Equine Disease Quarterly, Dr Lucia Unger and Professor Vinzenz Gerber, from the Equine Clinic at the University of Berne, said the economic impact is often devastating. Affected horses can either die quickly or show profuse sweating, muscle twitching, weakness, abnormal urine colour, reluctance to move, recumbency and difficulty breathing. Death can follow after 12 to 72 hours. Since the cause is unknown, no effective protective treatment exists, and affected horses can only be treated for their symptoms. Large outbreaks have been reported since the 1980s in parts of Europe including the United Kingdom, Fra ...

BEVA 50th Anniversary Dinner

Eq Quarterly Disease Surveillance Report

Update on 2012 Olympic Volunteers