The work of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and transboundary animal diseases in a globalised world

Abstract

Summary Many countries use the term ‘exotic animal disease’ or ‘foreign animal disease’ to designate those diseases that could have disastrous consequences if they were to enter their territory because of direct losses to the domestic population suffering from the disease or required counterepizootic measures, loss in trade, or possibly from a potential zoonotic spill-over. From the point of view of the United Nations the preferred term is transboundary animal diseases (TADs), as nothing is of itself exotic or foreign in the global theatre. TADs are defined by veterinary experts as those diseases that are of significant economic, trade and/or food security importance for a considerable number of countries, which can easily spread to other countries and reach epidemic proportions, and where control/management, including exclusion, requires cooperation between several countries. Such a definition should include emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), most of which are likely to be zoonoses, but of uncertain impacts. FAO’s Emergency Prevention System – Animal Health (EMPRES-AH) focuses on some 12 to 14 diseases of transboundary nature (foot and mouth disease, rinderpest, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, sheep and goat pox, peste des petits ruminants, highly pathogenic avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, Newcastle disease, African and classical swine fever, equine encephalitis, and under certain circumstances, rabies and brucellosis). The links between wildlife and livestock are seamless, and knowledge on management issues is imperative for future practitioners in understanding disease ecology. The key aspect to detection and containment of TADs and EIDs is to have all actors within the production and marketing chain linked with veterinary systems (encompassing those who teach at veterinary faculties, rural and urban practitioners, and regulatory authorities) to learn how to clinically suspect these diseases and call upon specialists in the case of uncertainty, and count on their active participation during emergency simulation exercises – at local or central levels. The common denominator for lowering risks and threats management of TADs (or other infectious diseases) is strategic epidemiology. This encompasses efforts to ensure that people heed warnings, communication of risk factors, disease recognition, detection and diagnosis, and cross-occupational efforts for response and eventual recovery. The role of the educator is to place importance on training future practitioners in investigative skills, open-mindedness in developing differential diagnosis lists, sample taking, risk analysis, care in not vectoring diseases off a premise, and knowing whom to contact in the event of mounting uncertainty. The new veterinary graduate should be well equipped to play a key role in globalised societies in the context of developed as well as developing counties.