World Veterinary Day commemorated

08 May, 2016 - 00:05 0 Views
World Veterinary Day commemorated Sunday Mail

The Sunday Mail

April 30, 2016 marked the “World Veterinary Day” by promoting continuing education for veterinarians in the “One Health” concept.
Falling on the last Saturday of April, World Veterinary Day (WVD), was created by The World Veterinary Association (WVA) in 2000, to be celebrated annually by the veterinary profession. Each year, the WVA and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) select a theme for the event.
The theme for 2016 is founded on experiences such as the recent Ebola epidemic as well as the numerous human deaths caused each year by rabies. These experiences remind us of the strong relationships of the health of people, animals and the environment, which necessitate multi-sectoral approaches for bio-medical research, pest and disease control as well as prevention, presently promoted through the inter-disciplinary “One Health” concept.
Animals and people
Animals are integral to the complex state of bio-diversity, now recognised to be the cornerstone of a sustainable environment and development, assuring us perpetuity as a species. Animals such as dogs, cats, horses, ponies, among others, are our companions. Where bonding has been allowed to develop, companion animals have been known to be of notable emotional therapeutic value to persons suffering from psychological problems.
Other animal classes render us services in the form of physical work relieving us of arduous physical labour and burden. In our context, donkeys, mules, horses and draught cattle are indispensable where motorised options are not available to provide traction for transport, tillage for crop cultivation, grinding mills and for driving pumping systems for water.
Dogs, known the world-wide as man’s best friend, assist in herding range animals and are trainable to be of service in security systems as well as in assisting navigation by the eye-sight impaired.
Border authorities at ports of entry often deploy pigs or dogs in sniffing out undesirable goods in transit for the maintenance of order. Certain types of rats are used in sniffing out land mines for our security and safety. Pigeons have been relied upon to run competent “postal” systems especially in times of war in the past.
Falcons, horses, ponies and in some cases dogs are known for their recreational value, with performing horses in particular, generate billions of dollars worth of revenue earnings for some countries. Animals in the wild are a major success factor in eco-tourism.
Animals also provide fibre and skins, valued in the production fabric used in the clothing, upholstery and adornments and utility items as well as being a base for home industries.
Animals are thus important and integral in livelihood support, for aesthetics and economies.
Animals and the environment
While co-existing, man and animals (both wild and domesticated), share and compete for water and grazing resources. They also have a wide range of diseases and pests common to both, some having consequences to development objectives such as public health and food security. It is now a generally accepted fact that more than 60 percent of human infectious diseases originate or are shared with animals. More than 75 percent of emerging diseases of our time are zoonotic (shared with animals).
Globalisation is seeing an acceleration of the appearance of new sanitary events, where at least five new infectious diseases of man emerge or re-emerge each year, of which about three are zoonotic. In recent years, we have experienced global concerns over new diseases like avian influenza, swine flu, SARS, Hanta virus, Hendra virus and more recently on the continent, Ebola. Emerging zoonotic diseases add to others, which have long been endemic including anthrax, rabies, Rift Valley Fever, Brucellosis, Tuberculosis, mange mites (gwembe), and a variety of fungal and parasitic conditions (zvisasa).
The present challenge to our ability to satisfy trade competitiveness in live animal and fresh meat products is rooted in the national capacity to keep wild animals separate from those which are domesticated, as a risk management measure for certain disease risks of a trans-boundary nature.
Animals in food and nutrition security
One of the most important uses of animals is in the provision of food. Animal-source foods are particularly rich in essential protein ingredients required in human nutrition. They are also richly endowed with certain essential nutrients in the form of vitamins and minerals. Within ecosystems, food animals occupy the niche of converting useless waste such as herbage, dry organic material, agricultural and food processing waste and even organic by-products from industry, into dense high value protein and other micronutrients. Animal waste is, in turn, important in soil fertility. Animals are, therefore, important in nutrient recycling for ecosystem maintenance, an important climate change mitigatory factor.
Programmes promoting nutritional security, therefore, necessarily include objectives aimed at enhancing production of food animals. This requires that food safety risks are always systematically checked in the supply chain.
Basis and purpose of a national veterinary service
The close relationship of man and animals, is one fraught with challenges, which need constant guarding in mutual interest. To benefit man, animals need to be allowed to thrive in conditions guaranteeing their multiplication and welfare, ensuring a good balance in ecosystems.
At the same time, the risks presented by animals to human well-being also need to be mitigated. It is in these contexts that services in animal health and welfare are important aspects offered by Veterinary professions. All countries depend on the performance of their national Veterinary Services, in their public and private components, not only to successfully control animal diseases for economic reasons, but also to tackle food safety issues in the context of food security, and to effectively prevent and control any biological disasters. Therefore, veterinarians should be well trained to preserve animal health and welfare, as well as to tackle public health issues
Private veterinary services attend to issues of animal health and welfare limited to personal or business interests.
On the other hand, public veterinary services are about the management of those interests from which everyone can benefit without exclusion. The provision of extension services in animal health and welfare, improves competencies of value chain players in minimising the effect of disease-related losses and product contamination during production, processing, storage and at marketing.
When players act correctly to minimise supply chain risks, we benefit from greater quantities of products of higher quality and consumers benefit from reduced food safety risks and reduced food wastage, which results.
Regulatory enforcement of disease control and disease prevention services carried out by the public sector focuses primarily on trans-boundary animal and zoonotic diseases and pests of economic and public health importance. These services are a prerequisite for trade certification. An effective and efficient veterinary service is, therefore, a requirement for trade in animals and animal products.
Beyond animal diseases and pests, public veterinary services also regulate the use of veterinary pharmaceuticals and biologicals, improper use of which can impact on human health.
Veterinary interests in animal welfare are from the point of view that health issues can first of all impact on bio-diversity conservation, a necessary factor for environmental sustainability. Secondly, animal health itself, is often an interplay between animal welfare management and the environment, often associated with production losses.
Effectiveness of veterinary services
The effectiveness of a veterinary service hinges on a highly competent veterinary staff force thriving on co-operation between the private and the public veterinary sectors, and an effective early warning and rapid response system for trans-boundary or emerging animal diseases and pests likely to negatively affect the livestock industry as a whole.
This means that the profession itself is subject to checks to ensure that formal training of veterinary staff at institutions is in keeping with current scientific standards and is guarded by high moral sense of judgement and behavior on the part of trained personnel. A Veterinary Professions’ Council keeps the ethical behaviour of veterinarians and veterinary para-professionals in check, while veterinary tertiary training institutions abide by formal training standards and offer in-service and continuing professional development courses to ensure sustainable level of veterinary staff competency.
Therefore, this year, the WVD’s theme focuses on how veterinarians continue their educational efforts to increase their expertise on One Health topics, such as zoonotic diseases, food safety, antimicrobial resistance, biological threat reduction and how they collaborate with the human health and security sectors to tackle these issues.
Collaborative activities already exist with the Parks and Wildlife Authority for conservation of natural resources and with the health and child care sector on surveillance and control of trypanosomoses, rabies, anthrax and a range of parasitic food-borne conditions of animals and food safety in general. These are being done through collaborative research, training, surveillance and prevention and control.
This year, we commemorate veterinary services offered both as private and public goods for the benefit of mankind, in homes, institutions, for our transport, our wellbeing, safety including the provision of our security in both a biological and physical sense, as we build the national economy.

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