Veterinarians are Essential Health Workers
By – Dr Md TaslimAnwar
Touring Veterinary Officer ,
Bounsi, Banka
Bihar Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Resources, Patna ( Bihar )
Veterinarians remains invisible to the society in protecting and improving the health of people and its community .They are honoured with comprehensivemedical training for promoting public health , food safety and security.The knowledge of Veterinary Science is applied not only for animal health but also for human’s physicalmental, social well-being. They are only doctor educated to protect health of both animals and humans.
Veterinarians contribution as Essential Health Workers can be summarized under below key zones :
1.ZoonoticDiseases :Veterinarians plays a pivotal role as skilled diagnosticians for diseases of animals that may affect owner , their families and surrounding mankind. They involve in specific public health activities by performing routine health examination, maintaining vaccination regimen as well implementing parasitic control.We veterinarians acts as a reporting agency to state public health in collaboration with human medical counterparts on zoonotic disease prevention and control Many zoonotic diseases transmitted by food producing animals ( Brucellosis and Tuberculosis ) have been eradicated from developed countries and would be a nightmare without the co-operation of Veterinary Doctors in rest .
2.Food Safety/ Public Health :We the veterinarians plays a vital role in safety of food supply. Ante-mortem activitiesare carried out by assuring animal welfare , zoonotic diseases recognition and anti-microbial residues testing are key role by a veterinarian. Even post- mortem activities include carcass inspection and tissue residue determination. We regulate judicious use of antimicrobial and its withdrawal in food animals in collaboration with other health professionals (One Health).
In many developed countries Veterinarians are involved in study of affects of pesticides, industrial pollutants and other contaminants on animals and people Veterinarian are involved to protect the public health and safety through their working in developing disease surveillance and anti-terrorism procedures and protocol.
3.Diagnostic Laboratories : For development of novel therapeutic an ideal diagnostic laboratories are a need of hour .Hence a trained laboratory animal medicine practitioners are needed to maintain healthy laboratory animals and ensure their humane use for research and diagnostics.
4.Heath Education, Extension and Research: Veterinarians help educate the public on threat of infectious and non-infectious diseases. They have made many important contributions in human health. For example Veterinarians made diseases that helped control malaria, solved the mystery of bolutism ,produced and anti-coaglulantused to treat some people with heart diseases . They havealso developed and refined techniques such as artificial limbs and new treatment for joints diseases and broken bones.
5.Armed Force Services : Veterinarians are employed at Remote Veterinary Corps or at Indo-Tibetan Border Police where they are responsible for food safety, veterinary care of government owned animals and biomedical research and development. They manage occupational illness , food borne disease and communicable disease control programs.
Though Veterinarians form the backbone of “One World ,One Health “ even though most of our country Veterinarians are sweeping with mental as well physical health crisis. Its the time to systematise Veterinarians well being through department of animal husbandry and dairying of various states by allocating funds on Veterinary resources. A healthy mental and physical well being of Veterinarians will only form an integral part in global health and public well being.
Thank you….
Jai Jawan , Jai Kisaan , Jai Vigyan !
