Nueva página LEAD - Nouveau site LEAD

Livestock, Environment and Development
The LEAD web site has been redesigned and the content revised to bring it completely up to date. There have also been significant layout changes and improvements to the usability and the navigation.

Read more at http://www.fao.org/agriculture/lead/en/.

Ejercicio de simulacro - Brasil / Exercice de simulation - Brésil
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Dr Jamil Gomes de Souza, Director of Animal Health Department, Secretariat of Agriculture and Livestock Defence of the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply (MAPA) of Brazil informed the OIE that the MAPA and the Pan American Centre for Foot-and-Mouth Disease (PANAFTOSA), will conduct, within the framework of the technical cooperation MAPA and PAHO(1)/PANAFTOSA, an emergency disease exercise focused on swine diseases. This exercise will be held from 4 to 10 July 2009 in the regional bureau of Estrela, in Rio Grande do Sul State .
The main purpose of this theoretical and practical exercise is to train veterinarians of official Veterinary Services in the implementation and evaluation of actions planned in the National Contingency Plan.
(1) PAHO: Pan American Health Organization

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Animal Health Information Department
World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE)
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The internationally renowned weekly publication The Veterinary Record is re-launching its comprehensive jobs website featuring daily updates, personalised job alerts and career-related courses and events for job seekers. Veterinary recruiters will be able to complement their print advert with digital advertising options and British Veterinary Association (BVA) members will receive a generous discount on ad bookings.

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WSAVA Activities and Committee Reports

Dr. David Wadsworth, WSAVA President, 2009 Assembly Report.

The next WSAVA year will be even more exciting than this one has been. The 50th birthday celebrations will commence in Sao Paulo and conclude in Geneva in 2010 on the shores of Lac Leman with the Mont Blanc massif providing the backdrop for a wonderful Congress Banquet.

The Animal Welfare committee – another cornerstone of WSAVA work continues to work hard at increasing the standards of animal welfare internationally.

The Scientific Advisory Committee, under the chairmanship of Michael Day has strong ties with the academic world and our standardization projects are reported annually to ACVIM and ECVIM.

WSAVA Committee Highlight – The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)
The WSAVA Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) advises and assists the WSAVA Executive Board in developing links with the academic world involved in research and development in Small Animal Veterinary Science. Its aim is to stimulate academic participation under the auspices of the WSAVA and at the same time to promote worldwide access to knowledge resulting from research.

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The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has called on Defra to abandon its plans for a new animal health body that will give responsibility for animal health to an independent board and leave responsibility for animal welfare with ministers.

The BVA has also expressed deep concerns over the confusion caused by the new structure that could lead to delays in dealing with outbreaks of disease across the UK.

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“The way towards global control”
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Asunción, Paraguay 26 June 2009 –The OIE/FAO Global Conference on Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), held in Asunción, Paraguay (24-26 June) agreed on boosting new national and regional policies and actions for the ideal of a global control of foot and mouth disease (FMD).

More than 100 developing countries of the world are not FMD-free which causes ripple effects on food security because of shortage of high value proteins such as milk and meat. FMD deriving impacts are seen on poverty in many developing countries as well as on safety of trade of animals and animal products.

“FMD-free countries must support infected developing countries in the control of FMD because while contributing to poverty alleviation they will protect their territory from virus reintroduction. It is a win-win action ” Dr Bernard Vallat, Director General of the OIE said.

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Egypt has seen mass culling of pigs. Public-health experts are warning that a lack of surveillance may be allowing the 2009 pandemic H1N1 flu virus to go undetected in pigs. This raises the risk that the virus could circulate freely between humans and pigs, making it more likely to reassort into a deadlier strain, they say. Pig surveillance is largely the remit of animal-health organizations, agriculture ministries and the farming industry. Their main concern tends to be that any reports of the pandemic virus in pigs might provoke overreactions such as the mass culling of pigs that took place in Egypt, or trade bans on pigs and pork. Within minutes of the World Health Organization (WHO) announcement on 11 June that swine flu had become a pandemic, Bernard Vallat, director-general of an intergovernmental trade body, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), had reiterated that trade sanctions were unjustified. "So far the role of animals has not been demonstrated in the virus's epidemiology or spread," he asserted.

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A new analysis of the current swine-origin H1N1 influenza A virus suggests that transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the existing outbreak. The work, published online in Nature June 10, highlights the need for systematic surveillance of influenza in swine, and provides evidence that new genetic elements in swine can result in the emergence of viruses with pandemic potential in humans. 'Using computational methods, developed over the last ten years at Oxford, we were able to reconstruct the origins and timescale of this new pandemic,' said Dr Oliver Pybus of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, an author of the paper. 'Our results show that this strain has been circulating among pigs, possibly among multiple continents, for many years prior to its transmission to humans.' Dr Pybus, along with Andrew Rambaut from the University of Edinburgh and colleagues, used evolutionary analysis to estimate the timescale of the origins and the early development of the epidemic. They believe that it was derived from several viruses circulating in swine, and that the initial transmission to humans occurred several months before recognition of the outbreak. The team conclude that 'despite widespread influenza surveillance in humans, the lack of systematic swine surveillance allowed for the undetected persistence and evolution of this potentially pandemic strain for many years.'

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Making a start on wildlife

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News and Reports
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EC proposes to extend UK's pet travel derogation

Queen's birthday honours

Opinions sought on a new system of veterinary nursing qualifications

New cancer centre at Edinburgh vet school

EMS - the 'jewel in the crown' of UK veterinary education

Nepal celebrates World Veterinary Day in style

Vet reprimanded for 'reckless certification'

New horse ID rules come into force

Wildlife health

New president for Pig Veterinary Society

Antimicrobial resistance: call for a more proactive approach
Karin de Lange

NEWS IN BRIEF

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Surveillance
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Evidence of fluke metacercariae overwintering on infected pastures

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Papers
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Induction of anaesthesia with either midazolam or propofol in rabbits premedicated with fentanyl/fluanisone
M. A. Martinez, P. J. Murison, and E. Love

Beneficial effects on the reproductive performance of sows of administering prostaglandin analogues after farrowing
J. V. Lopez, M. Ptaszynska, P. Gonzalez, M. Jimenez, and M. R. T. M. Martens

Scintigraphic pattern of uptake of 99mTechnetium by the cervical vertebrae of sound horses
D. Didierlaurent, V. Contremoulins, J-M. Denoix, and F. Audigie
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Short Communications
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Prevalence of equine gastric ulceration syndrome in standardbreds
C. M. de Bruijn, A. H. Schutrups, and E. H. A. L. Seesing

Clostridium perfringens type D epsilon intoxication in one-day-old calves
P. J. Watson and S. F. E. Scholes

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A hot topic on many consumers’ minds these days is the welfare of animals on farms. In this new Chew on This podcast, Dr. Gail Golab, Director of the AVMA’s Animal Welfare Division, discusses why the public is increasingly interested in animal welfare. Dr. Golab also addresses some of the facts and misconceptions regarding the welfare of animals used to produce food.

Listen to the podcast ...