Overview of cattle diseases listed under category C, D or E in the animal health law for wich control programmes are in place within Europe

13 páginas, 5 figuras, 3 tablas.The COST action “Standardising output-based surveillance to control non-regulated diseases of cattle in the European Union (SOUND control),” aims to harmonise the results of surveillance and control programmes (CPs) for non-EU regulated cattle diseases to facilitate safe trade and improve overall control of cattle infectious diseases. In this paper we aimed to provide an overview on the diversity of control for these diseases in Europe. A non-EU regulated cattle disease was defined as an infectious disease of cattle with no or limited control at EU level, which is not included in the European Union Animal health law Categories A or B under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2020/2002. A CP was defined as surveillance and/or intervention strategies designed to lower the incidence, prevalence, mortality or prove freedom from a specific disease in a region or country. Passive surveillance, and active surveillance of breeding bulls under Council Directive 88/407/EEC were not considered as CPs. A questionnaire was designed to obtain country-specific information about CPs for each disease. Animal health experts from 33 European countries completed the questionnaire. Overall, there are 23 diseases for which a CP exists in one or more of the countries studied. The diseases for which CPs exist in the highest number of countries are enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis, bovine viral diarrhoea and anthrax (CPs reported by between 16 and 31 countries). Every participating country has on average, 6 CPs (min–max: 1–13) in place. Most programmes are implemented at a national level (86%) and are applied to both dairy and non-dairy cattle (75%). Approximately one-third of the CPs are voluntary, and the funding structure is divided between government and private resources. Countries that have eradicated diseases like enzootic bovine leukosis, bluetongue, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and bovine viral diarrhoea have implemented CPs for other diseases to further improve the health status of cattle in their country. The control of non-EU regulated cattle diseases is very heterogenous in Europe. Therefore, the standardising of the outputs of these programmes to enable comparison represents a challenge.Peer reviewe

Laser treatment of a-SiC:H thin films for optoelectronic applications

Amorphous and hydrogenated (a-SiC:H) as well as crystalline silicon carbide are widespread materials for optoelectronic applications. In this paper, we studied the effect of laser/RF plasma jet treatment of a-SiC:H thin films deposited by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD), on Si wafers. A Nd:YAG laser (λ = 1.06 μ, tFWHM = 14 ns, E0 equals 0.015 J/pulse) was used with a fluence of 4 mJ/cm2 incident on the sample, the number of pulses being varied. Plasma treatments were performed in a plasma jet generated by a capacity coupled RF discharge in N2. Different analysis techniques were used to investigate the films, before and after the irradiation: X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (ThM). We followed the modification of their structure and composition as an effect of the laser/plasma treatment. A comparison with the excimer and also with the RF treatments was performed. ©2003 Copyright SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering