The Generative Brain
Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Weybridge, UK logo

Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), Weybridge, UK

APHA is the UK government animal and plant health agency, an executive agency of Defra with its headquarters and main laboratories at Weybridge, Surrey (postal address New Haw, Addlestone). Its Weybridge site, earlier known as the Central Veterinary Laboratory and later the VLA and AHVLA, is where BSE was first named in 1986 and has been a leading animal TSE diagnosis and research laboratory since. It was the EU reference laboratory for TSEs until December 2018, when that role moved to Turin, and it reports to WOAH as a reference laboratory for BSE and scrapie. For the atlas it matters as the UK centre for animal prion testing and as a frequent co-author with European and Canadian prion laboratories. It runs no human CJD service.

Key facts

  • APHA is an executive agency of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that also acts for the Scottish and Welsh Governments; it was launched on 1 October 2014 by merging the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency with the plant and bee health work of the Food and Environment Research Agency, is headquartered at Weybridge and has about 3,200 staff.
  • The Weybridge site started as the Addlestone Institute (plaque dated 1917) and was long called the Central Veterinary Laboratory; its pathologists named bovine spongiform encephalopathy after a new dairy cattle disease was found in 1986, and analysis linked it to meat and bone meal feed carrying a scrapie-like agent.
  • Through the 1990s Weybridge led UK work on TSE diagnosis and research and set up a TSE Archive of tissue and fluid samples to support international studies.
  • APHA held the EU reference laboratories for avian influenza, Newcastle disease and TSEs and completed their transfer to laboratories in another Member State in December 2018, while keeping its OIE (now WOAH) and/or FAO reference status for those diseases.
  • WOAH annual reports list the APHA Weybridge Pathology Department as a designated WOAH reference laboratory for BSE (2025 report) and for scrapie (2024 report).
  • The same WOAH BSE report says the laboratory supplies brain tissue through the APHA VETQAS proficiency testing scheme for ELISA and western blot testing (search excerpt only).
  • In Great Britain an APHA vet assesses any suspected BSE case; APHA restricts movement, culls the animal on farm or takes it to an APHA laboratory, tests it, restricts the herd and traces cohorts and offspring.
  • Fallen stock and emergency slaughter cattle must be tested above 48 months if born in most EU states and above 24 months if born in Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia or outside the EU; owners have paid for sampling since 1 April 2019 while government pays for transport and testing.
  • WOAH gave the UK negligible BSE risk status on 9 June 2025 and the EU accepted it on 25 November 2025.
  • In Scotland suspected BSE must be reported to the APHA field service; the Scottish Government reported a classical BSE case confirmed in Dumfries and Galloway on 19 August 2026 that did not enter the food chain, and an atypical case there confirmed on 6 December 2024.
  • An APHA pathology department author co-wrote the 2016 Veterinary Research report of the first chronic wasting disease case in Europe, a wild reindeer in Norway, with the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, the CFIA Ottawa reference laboratory and the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
  • An APHA author was among the coauthors of the October 2024 Blood paper led from Roslin that compared two PMCA versions and RT-QuIC on longitudinal preclinical sheep blood, alongside EFS, MHRA and INRAE Toulouse authors; the work was BBSRC funded.

Timeline

  1. 1917Addlestone Institute plaque on the Weybridge main building.
  2. 1986New cattle disease identified and named BSE by Central Veterinary Laboratory pathologists.
  3. 2014APHA launched from AHVLA plus FERA plant and bee health functions.
  4. 2016First European CWD case published with an APHA coauthor.
  5. 2018Transfer of APHA EU reference laboratory roles, including TSEs, completed.
  6. 2019Owners start paying for fallen stock TSE sampling in Great Britain.
  7. 2024Blood paper on preclinical sheep blood prion assays with an APHA coauthor.
  8. 2025WOAH grants the UK negligible BSE risk status.
  9. 2026Classical BSE confirmed in a cow in Dumfries and Galloway (APHA is the notification route in Scotland).
Sources for this page