Emergency Management: Disinfectants
Veterinary Services protects and improves the health, quality, and marketability of our Nation's animals, animal products and veterinary biologics by preventing, controlling or eliminating animal diseases, and monitoring and promoting animal health and productivity. Chemical disinfectants assist in protecting animal health by inactivating microbes on hard nonporous surfaces that cause disease in animals.
The table below lists various documents that can help government agencies and the public choose appropriate disinfectants to use against animal disease causative agents. This is a living document and is periodically updated to reflect the most current information. For questions or concerns regarding this document, send an email to vs.sp.disinfectants@usda.gov.
The biosecurity officer of the APHIS or State partner incident management team responding to a foreign animal disease incident should use, as their first recourse, a commercially available U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-registered disinfectant according to the directions on its container label (i.e., a Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) section 3 registration1). If a suitable commercially available EPA-registered disinfectant is not available, only then may a suitable disinfectant approved for use under a FIFRA section 18 registration2 be used according to its FIFRA section 18 label. Biosecurity officers should have with them a paper or electronic copy of the section 18 label and ensure that section 18 disinfectants are prepared and applied according to this section 18 label. Biosecurity officers using a section 18 disinfectant must record the amounts used and report this monthly to vs.sp.disinfectants@usda.gov.
1 FIFRA section 3 registrations: Section 3 of FIFRA authorizes EPA to register pesticides for use throughout the United State. For more information, see Types of Registrations Under FIFRA.
2 FIFRA section 18 registrations: Section 18 of FIFRA authorizes EPA to allow emergency exemptions (also called section 18s) for the unregistered use of pesticides to address emergency conditions. For more information, see Types of Registrations Under FIFRA.