Veterinary Public Health

Specific VPH Issues and Challenges

Within veterinary public health in the Caribbean sub-region, there is a lack of clear guidelines on the roles of various veterinary personnel. Veterinary public health matters in most member States must be dealt with through Veterinary Services Divisions in the Ministry of Agriculture since only three countries in the English-speaking Caribbean - Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago - have Veterinary Public Health Units, and all are small with broad-based responsibilities.

The sub-regional VPH program conforms to the Strategic Plan of PAHO/WHO proposed for 2008-2012, and revolves around the following strategic objectives:

The main problems to be addressed therefore are:

1. The lack of adequate surveillance information for measuring the burden of communicable zoonotic diseases and to assist in better preparedness for events such as disasters and pandemics in the Caribbean sub-region.
2. Insufficient core sub-regional capacity for monitoring and responding to challenges of increasing human and animal movement; a growing international trade in food and other products (inclusive of veterinary biologicals); advances in food processing technology; consumer habits and the increasing consumption of street foods; and the overall monitoring of infectious disease events in the Caribbean.
3. Meeting core sub-regional capacities to respond to veterinary public health challenges related to the new framework of the International Health Regulations (IHR) that went into force on June 15, 2007.
4. Inadequate country capacity in the Caribbean sub-region to:
   • avoid adverse effects on health and well-being, as well as on minimization of low levels of school attendance, poverty, and environmental problems, through an improved epidemiological surveillance and data-recording system for neglected zoonotic diseases; and
   • more easily and accurately estimate disease burden.
5. Weak programs for effective control of rabies transmitted by bats in Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago; and by mongooses in Grenada.

Integrating Health and other Ministries

The link between health and agriculture is undeniable. Many health determinants are affected or directly linked to activities and programs that are executed outside the mandates of Ministries of Health.

Health concerns that require attention range from food safety issues to bioterrorism threats to which the Caribbean sub-region remains vulnerable.

The VPH program is closely linked to the tourism program in the sub-region, recognizing that the factors affecting the decline in agriculture have also contributed to tourism becoming a mainstay of the economies of many Caribbean states.

But by its very nature, tourism generates a high through-put of travellers, creating an expanding borderless sub-region exposed to health risks from imported emerging and re-emerging diseases of public health significance.

The VPH program therefore sees as one of its crucial roles to build strong partnerships and alliances with public and private sector partners to assist Member States to

• rationalize and maintain efficient and effective agricultural health and food safety systems aimed at facilitating their health and economic needs, and
• more recently to meet the challenges of expanding initiatives under the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) established by CARICOM.

These goals would be achieved thought efforts to;

• jointly eliminate hunger,
• reduce poverty,
• promote food safety and food security,
• prevent and control the emergence and spread of public health diseases, and
• enhance overall public health.