On 20 July, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), made public for the first time an informational document entitled “Process for Foreign Animal Disease Status Evaluations, Regionalization, Risk Analysis, and Rulemaking”1.

APHIS regulates the importation of animals and animal products to protect against the introduction of animal diseases into the United States. 9CFR, Chapter I, Subchapter D, Parts 91–99 describe APHIS' procedures for accepting and evaluating requests for regionalization based on information about the status of animal disease in the source region, veterinary infrastructure, livestock demographics, and degree of physical or other separation from regions of higher disease risk. APHIS uses this information and information from other sources to determine whether and at what risk animals may be imported into the country.

This is the first time the USDA has made public a document that describes the way APHIS applies risk analysis to the decision making process for regionalization. The document describes “the process for initiation of an evaluation; the composition of the review teams that participate in various components of the evaluation; the role of site visits in evaluations; the types of risk analyses that are conducted and the situations in which different types of analyses are used; the assignment of responsibility for conduct of risk analysis; the basis for recommendations to APHIS management regarding requests; the regulatory process APHIS follows to seek public comment on recommendations to recognize regions and allow the requested importations; and time considerations from initial request to final rulemaking1.”