Sokymat has announced that it is now offering RFID chips that comply with the new EU pet passport regulations, which mandate the use of such identification techniques for dogs, cats and ferrets travelling into and between member countries. But there's more - the company says the tags even work with fish.

     The main driver behind the EU pet passport initiative is to help prevent the spread of rabies in Europe. As of October 1st 2004, for an eight-year transitional period, animals are regarded as identified only if they bear either a clearly readable tattoo or an electronic identification tag (i.e. an RFID transponder). 116.30.151.81 This article is copyright 2005

UsingRFID.com.

     After that transitional period, only electronic ID tagging will be valid (in fact, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta already require an RFID tag instead of a tattoo). The corresponding chip number must be shown in the "pet passport" - a booklet bearing records of vaccinations, tick treatments, clinical examinations and other data related to the animal. Most importantly for pet owners, animals with valid pet passports get to avoid the mandatory 6-month quarantine upon crossing state borders.

Glass tags
     Sokymat Food & Animal deals with and develops full duplex RFID tags specially for individual animal identification, including cats, dogs, birds, cattle, and even fish. Being similar in many ways to the already controversial VeriChip tags, the company's small Glass Tag transponders are easily and painlessly implanted under the skin of the animal, and carry a unique 10-character alpha-numeric code. The tags comply with ISO standards 11784 and 11785. Once tagged and registered, pets are accurately identifiable.

     After insertion of the microchip, the pet is then vaccinated against rabies (not, presumably, in the case of a pet fish...) and a passport is sent directly to the veterinarian who then enters the details of the vaccination and blood test results, along with the tag number, the date of its insertion, and its location in the animal.

Sokymat employs more than 300 staff worldwide, and has R&D centres and manufacturing plants in Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Malaysia.

 

 

 

 

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