Prague,
8 March 2004
Dr Joseph D o m e n e c h
Chief,
Animal Health Service
Animal
Production and Health Division
Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Via delle
Terme di Caracalla
00100 Roma
I T A L I A
---------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dr
Domenech,
Allow me to congratulate you as to the new
Chief, Animal Health Service and to wish you and AGAH staff all the best in
your extremely responsible international activities.
I hope that it could be useful to inform you
about two papers dealing with the history
of the AGAH which I was asked to prepare for the Congresses of the World
Association for the History of Veterinary Medicine (WAHVM) as the member of this association:
- History
of veterinary service of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations
- History
of veterinary education policy of the United Nations.
Both are available on my website
: http://www.cbox.cz/vaclavkouba
On the same website you can find:
- the textbook of “ Epizootiology Principles and Methods“ as well as a software EPIZOO of more than 300 methods for the analysis of animal population
health and programming; all are available free of charge (they could be useful
for some AGAH projects);
- a block of texts and statistics dealing with
the globalization of animal diseases as a
man-made irreparable global ecological disaster caused mainly through
international trade based on antisanitary WTO-SPS (its only purpose is to
“facilitate trade” at the expense of the health) discriminating importing
countries, first of all almost defenceless developing ones; there is also a
list of my warning letters (including letters sent to DG FAO, to Director AGA
and to Chief, AGAH – all should be available at the FAO HQs) demanding to act against
conscious and organized international spreading of animal diseases; there is
also full text sent to DG WTO asking to
abolish the WTO-SPS which doesn’t know the trade in „healthy animals“ or
„innocuous animal products“ or “pathogen free products” and which started
officially the globalization with catastrophic consequences replacing the
guarantee for sanitary innocuousness by abusing theoretical non transparent “risk
assessment”; as non-tariff barrier was declared the protection of importing
country health instead of exporting country diseases;
- a block of texts dealing with some other global animal health problems.
I would like to recommend you to reconsider the
role of the FAO i n g l o b a l a n i m
a l h e a l t h i n f o
r m a t i o n s y s t e m which was
lost in 1996 (under difficult-to-understand circumstances) in spite of the FAO
Basic Texts where the first FAO duty is to collect, collate and disseminate
information, i.e. including animal health. Necessary data on animal health
situation in the member countries for decision making, instead to be further
developed and improved, disappeared including those on disease introduction
through trade. Global animal health information system was always understood as
an i n t e g r a l c o m p
o n e n t of the FAO information system. Without
reliable data (today are missing) on animal health in the world is impossible to analyse the real situation
and identify correctly the priorities for international actions. It seems that
FAO has lost any influence on OIE information system which provides incomplete,
strongly underreported and confusing
data (reasonable recommendations to improve it, sent several times to DG OIE,
have not been respected at all – copies should be available at FAO HQs).
Within the United Nations Organization the F
A O i s r e s p o n s i b l e for a
n i m a l h e a l t h in the world. FAO always was consistently defending animal
health and uncompromisingly avoiding
spreading of animal diseases. FAO is today the o n l y international
organization applying these principles corresponding with medical ethics based
on protection of health. The sanitary situation in the world is getting worse
every day as never before thanks to mass spreading of diseases, mainly through
international trade, without being blocked by effective measures. AGAH cannot be passive to this unfavourable
phenomenon representing global crisis of veterinary medicine. Conscious,
deliberate and organized international spreading
of animal diseases, i.e. real international bioterrorism, is a c r i
m e . All documents and provisions
admitting and supporting international spreading of diseases must be abolished.
The extremely useful AGAH programme against transboundary propagation of animal diseases
requires to be expanded covering also
disease propagation through
international trade which is much more important due to the long distance
disease transfers and multiplying negative consequences. I know that this kind
of health protection of importing countries, including discriminated
developing ones, will have
difficulty with the WTO-SPS and the OIE Code supporting major exporting
developed countries and not applying above mentioned medical ethics based on consistent
preventive measures (in spite of several interventions requiring to return to
the original policy of the OIE to avoid diseases spreading). The WTO-SPS
admitting and supporting diseases spreading is clearly against all international
programmes (undermining them) requiring or supporting animal h e a l t h
such as: AGAH projects, WHO protection of human health, sustainable
livestock development, food hygiene, biosecurity, environment protection, reducing poverty, etc.
Finally, I would like to stress the need to
assist as much as possible to member countries in strengthening public veterinary services. Weak public
services are unable to control and eradicate diseases, to support AGAH
programmes and to assure their follow-up, to control effectively national and
international trade and to protect country
territory against the introduction of animal diseases.
With best regards
Prof.Dr Václav K o u b a,
DrSc.
Former Chief, AGAH
P.B.516,
17000 Praha 7
Tel.: 00420 -2333 81088
E-mail:
Annex: Copy of a paper on the globalization of
communicable
animal diseases
Dr Václav Kouba
P.B. 516, 17000 Praha 7
Czech Republic