Guidance

Vets: contact APHA to get expert advice on unusual animal disease

Vets can contact APHA to get expert advice about unusual animal disease or mortality in England and Wales.

Veterinary surgeons can contact the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to get advice about unusual animal disease or mortality in England and Wales.

You must report notifiable diseases in animals to APHA, even if you only suspect that an animal is affected.

If you鈥檙e a member of the public you can:

Vets should contact their nearest APHA Veterinary Investigation Centre for all general enquiries about disease, diagnostic testing, carcass submission or surveillance of livestock and wildlife.

Livestock

Contact the Species Expert Group (SEG) veterinary lead to discuss new, unusual, severe, or unresponsive disease in livestock or exotic animals.

Species Expert Group Veterinary lead and email address
Avian Zoe Treharne
[email protected]
Cattle Vanessa Swinson
[email protected]
Miscellaneous
and exotic farmed species
Hayley Wighton
[email protected]
Pig Claire Scott
[email protected]
Sheep and goats Rudolf Reichel
[email protected]

Small animals (pets)

Contact the Small Animals Expert Group veterinary lead for queries relating to small animals.

Elizabeth Bruno-McClung
Email: [email protected]

Wildlife

Contact the Wildlife Expert Group joint leads to discuss mass mortality (2 or more dead animals in the same location) or unusual deaths in wildlife.

Samantha Holland and Jenny Cantlay
Email: [email protected]

Horses

Contact at Cambridge Vet School, University of Cambridge:

  • for free outbreak advice for suspected or confirmed infectious disease occurrences in the UK
  • to discuss all aspects of outbreak management, from diagnostic sampling and control measures to clearance testing and prevention of future outbreaks

SEGs high level objectives

Read more about the SEGs high level objectives in the (PDF, 289 KB, 5 pages).

Updates to this page

Published 28 October 2024
Last updated 2 May 2025 show all updates
  1. Email addresses have been updated.

  2. First published.

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