The Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) delayed enforcement of an interim rule relating to the importation of horses from companies affected with contagious equine metritis (CEM) and re-opened the issue for public comment.
The interim rule, originally put into effect in March, requires additional certification requirement for imported horses 731 days of age or younger and adds new testing protocols for test mares and imported stallions and mares more than 731 days of age. APHIS is considering two changes to the requirements for the testing protocols.
First, rather than requiring three sets of cultures to be collected from imported stallions, the proposed change would require only one culture to be collected.
Second, instead of requiring all three cultures from imported and test mares to be taken from either the distal cervix or the endometrium, only the third culture taken would have such a requirement.
APHIS will accept public comments on the proposed change through September 7. Comments can be submitted digitally at http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=APHIS-2008-0112-0020