The Verkhovna Rada on Feb. 4 adopted bill No. 3318 on veterinary medicine and animal welfare, which introduces a risk-oriented approach to the accounting and control of livestock facilities for export-import activities, and facilities which activities create an increased risk of animal diseases.
According to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent, 305 MPs backed the bill with the required minimum of 226.
According to the document, these facilities will be subject to an approval procedure, including their preliminary inspection. Less risky livestock facilities will be subject to state registration on a first-come, first-served basis without prior inspection.
The law provides for a change in the rules of production, handling and use of veterinary medicines, similar to those laid down in EU Regulation 2019/6 on veterinary medicines. In particular, the validity of state registration of veterinary drugs will be indefinite with a maximum period of five years in the current law. Not only the production but also the import, wholesale and retail sale of veterinary medicines will be subject to licensing.
According to an explanatory note, the bill will determine the terms of non-disclosure of information provided during state registration in order to protect the intellectual property and commercial interests of developers of veterinary drugs.
The document also sets out the basic requirements for the production, handling and use of medicinal feeds and intermediate products of their production. In their production will be able to use only those veterinary drugs, the conditions of state registration of which provide for such a possibility of use.
The law provides for the establishment of a centralized database of veterinary pharmacovigilance, to which veterinary market operators will have access to report adverse reactions to veterinary medicinal products registered on their applications.
According to the explanatory note, the bill imposes a number of restrictions on the use of antimicrobial veterinary drugs to address the problem of antibiotic resistance. Thus, it is prohibited to use these products on a permanent basis or to overcome the effects of poor hygiene, poor animal husbandry practices or to enhance the growth and productivity of animals, while for productive animals antibiotics and other prescription veterinary drugs can be used only by licensed veterinarians.
For the purpose of deregulation the bill provides for reduction in the number of veterinary documents from five to three: an international veterinary certificate – when moving outside Ukraine, a veterinary certificate – when moving within Ukraine and a veterinary passport to identify animals. The term for making a decision on the issuance of such documents is reduced from one month to one day. Veterinary documents and veterinary prescriptions will be issued in paper and electronic form.
Accredited state laboratories and laboratories of other forms of ownership will be able to conduct laboratory tests (trials) to identify animal diseases, which will accelerate the development of laboratory and diagnostic infrastructure of veterinary medicine.
According to the explanatory note, a transition period is envisaged to ease the transition to a new system for controlling the import of live animals for business, according to which they will be able to import into Ukraine without inspection by the competent authority of Ukraine, provided that veterinary status of their facilities has not deteriorated and no bans were introduced over the past two years.
According to the comparative table, the agrarian committee took into account several technical amendments to the second reading, which regulated the dates of entry into force of certain provisions of the bill.
