S. 620 — Veterinary Services to Improve Public Health in Rural Communities Act

This section expresses the sense of Congress that the Indian Health Service is uniquely suited to empower Indian Tribes and Tribal organizations to address zoonotic disease threats in their communities by providing public health veterinary services through a One Health approach.

This section authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), acting through the Indian Health Service (IHS), to expend funds—directly or through self-determination contracts—for public health veterinary services (i.e., spaying and neutering domestic animals, diagnosis, surveillance, epidemiology, control, prevention, elimination, vaccination, and related activities to reduce zoonotic disease transmission or antimicrobial resistance) in IHS service areas where zoonotic disease (i.e., naturally transmissible between vertebrate animals and humans) risks to humans and wildlife are endemic. The section further allows assignment of veterinary public health officers from the Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service to IHS areas; requires coordination with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Department of Agriculture (USDA); and directs a biennial report to the Senate Committees on Indian Affairs and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and the House Committees on Natural Resources and Energy and Commerce describing fund uses, officer deployments, zoonotic disease surveillance data, and related services provided.

This section directs the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct, not later than one year after enactment, a feasibility study on delivering oral rabies vaccines to wildlife reservoir species connected to rabies transmission to Tribal members in U.S. Arctic regions. The study must (1) evaluate vaccine efficacy and (2) recommend improvements to vaccine delivery.

This section revises the One Health framework established under the PREVENT Pandemics Act (42 U.S.C. 300hh-37(b))—which coordinates federal surveillance, prevention, preparedness, and response activities for emerging infectious disease threats across human, animal, and environmental health sectors—to include the Director of the Indian Health Service in addition to the Secretary of the Interior and other specified federal officials.