The OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Code (TAHC) implements improvement standards of worldwide animal health and welfare and public health from a veterinary point of view. It includes standards international trade in terrestrial biological specimens (such as mammals and birds) and their merchandise. National veterinary authorities use it to provide for early detection of pathogens and to prevent the transfer of same by international trade in animals and animal merchandise, while skirting "unjustified sanitary barriers to trade".[1]