Prague,
5/2/2010
Dr Juan Lubroth, DVM, PhD, ACVPM
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 Lubroth,
This is to bring
you my warmest congratulation to your recent promotion to the post of the Chief, Animal Health Service. At first, I
would like to appreciate the successful AGAH programme against rinderpest (started
in 1961 by JP15), being close to final eradication as the first animal
infection in the history. Other programme which merits appreciation is the
EMPRES trying to avoid transboundary transmission of animal infections. I would
like to exploit this opportunity and inform you about some of my concerns:
1. The animal infectious diseases have been
spreading as never in the past when the trade used to be of much lesser
size and intensity, of much shorter distances from much lesser number of
localities to much lesser number of destination places, under much more
demanding import sanitary conditions based on much more screening
investigations, under much stricter control by much better staffed, equipped
and organized public services and when the protection and recovery of animal population
health were the priorities.
2. The critical period of substantial change
started in the middle of the 1990s. Public veterinary service on-the-spot controls
of animal population health and movements, namely of international trade, instead
of being significantly strengthened, were minimized ad absurdum. International information system, instead to be
significantly improved, was reduced providing
less practical information on infection disease occurrence and spreading
than before. Public veterinary services, instead of being significantly strengthened, were considerably reduced being limited to “armchair”
work. Uncontrolled, not always
dependable, non-public services cannot replace the reliability
of independent public services. Veterinary import conditions, instead of
being much more stricter than before, were made much more benevolent causing also
the lost of the motivation to protect and recover animal health in exporting countries; national infection
disease control and eradication programmes were substantially reduced or disappeared (the cheapest concept
= “doing nothing”).
3. The
consequences are projected in gradual irreparable
globalization of almost all known animal infections, including
internationally notifiable ones. The sanitary situation in the world is getting
worse every day as never before thanks to mass man-made spreading of diseases,
mainly through international trade, without being blocked by effective
measures.
4.
The exported animals and their products (meat in particular), without any
sanitary guarantee of being infection/pathogen-free (the WTO/SPS and the
OIE Code even impose sanctions on importing countries when refusing commodity
being not pathogen-free), go mostly from the major exporting developed
countries to importing developing ones, i.e. exporting also, without any
penalty, the animal infectious disease agents into often “defenseless”
countries. The imported pathogens worsen local sanitary situation either due to
quite new infections or aggravate specific infections’ occurrence, i.e. making
more difficult existing local sanitary problems. Imported infectious diseases are usually discovered too late (e.g.
2001 FMD in
5. In this
context, I would like also to recommend to reconsider
the role of the FAO in global animal health information system which was
lost in 1996 (under difficult-to-understand circumstances) in spite of the FAO Constitution, Article I, Function of
the Organization: “1. The Organization shall collect, analyse,
interpret and disseminate information related to nutrition, food and
agriculture.”, i.e. including animal health. Necessary data
on animal infection occurrence in
the member countries for decision making, instead to be further developed and
improved, were reduced ad absurdum
and data on disease introduction through trade disappeared at all. Global
animal health information system had always been understood as an integral
component of the FAO information system. Without reliable data on animal health
in the world is impossible to analyse
the real situation and identify correctly the priorities for international
actions. The FAO lost that time necessary
influence on global animal health information system which provides incomplete,
strongly underreported and confusing data
on animal infection occurrence and spread.
6. The actual OIE
policy, in contrast with its original function to protect animal health,
consists mainly in supporting international trade at the expense of animal
health in importing countries. This non-UN organization has never presented to
member country governments any global analysis and information on mass
long-distance man-made spreading of infection diseases of animals or any
suggestions for stopping unacceptable practice of the WTO when paying importing
country cannot ask for full sanitary
quality guarantee. I have written several letters to DG WTO and DG OIE
about this extremely serious problem, however the profit of the traders is for
them much more important than animal health protection and sanitary
innocuousness of animal products.
7. 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 infectious diseases,
to control effectively (i.e. on-the-spot) national/international trade and “accredited”
veterinarians/laboratories, to protect
country territory against the introduction of animal diseases or to
support AGAH programmes. In too many countries the Chief Veterinary Officer and
his staff remind the generals without solders. AGAH published in 1991 particular
recommendations “Guidelines for
Strengthening of Animal Health Services in Developing Countries” translated
in Spanish and French. Unfortunately, the 1990s mania of significantly reducing
the role of the governments and their services minimized their action power.
8.
The FAO member-country governments have
not yet received any analysis of man-made spreading of the
infectious diseases through international trade and of the animal and human
health impacts of WTO/OIE trade policy. Therefore, it should be carried out a critical and objective, i.e. scientific,
analysis of animal infection global man-made spreading and of its causes.
Particular attention to be given to WTO/SPS (based upon a mendacious and tricky
promising statement "Desiring to
improve the human health, animal health .. in all Members" while simultaneously admitting
and even consciously supporting the export of pathogens and abusing non-quantifiable “risk assessment” at the expense of
importing countries’ health) and OIE Code impacts on animal and human health in
the world and particularly in importing countries. The WTO/OIE provisions
serve as the “tip of the iceberg” guiding a huge “pyramid” of mass and daily spread of infectious
diseases through national and international trade, without being applied any
effective contra-measures. The conscious active spreading of infections is
usually considered by national legislation as a crime. The same is valid for the
mentioned international spreading being of much more importance than recent WHO
alarms. Trade liberalization cannot mean
the liberalization of infectious disease spreading ! Fair trade principles must
be applied also on animal commodities!
9. The Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations is the only international organization responsible
professionally and morally for global food and agriculture policy, including global
animal health protection. Therefore, it should be considered the critical and rapidly worsening
animal health situation in the world and based
on relevant analyses to present member-country governments information on true
situation which is alarming ! For
this kind of analyses there would be the need for collecting necessary data on
the “import” and spread of animal infections and related problems. Discovering
the major causes could serve as the basis for corresponding suggestions for the
governments. The truthful well documented information should be submitted to
the member-country governments through the FAO Conference of Member Nations, the
authority competent for the most important decisions of the Organization. It could
serve as the basis for the future global strategy of the FAO in the field of animal health.
10. The man-made colonization of our planet by
infectious disease pathogens, causing enormous numbers of diseased and dead
animals and humans (comparable with war consequences, representing international
terror much more important than the “classical” one), should be avoided as much
as possible. Immense
actual and future dramatic consequences and
relevance of man-made spreading of animal infections conducing to their globalization
affecting world animal and human populations requires to be discussed at the
highest international level, i.e. at United Nations General Assembly and UN Security
Council. The initiative could be originated from the AGAH as professionally the
most competent FAO service for this purpose. The AGAH has never been exposed to
so important and so demanding problem under so difficult circumstances and
conditions (e.g. opposition of profiting traders from exporting countries, counteractions
of the WTO and the OIE, global economic crisis, insufficient staff and budget, etc.).
Primum non nocere !
With best regards wishing you all the best
in
your extremely responsible international duty !
Prof. MVDr Václav K o u b a, DrSc.
Former Chief, Animal Health Service, FAO
P.B. 516, 17000 Praha 7, Czech Rep.
E-mail: vaclavkouba@cbox.cz
http://vaclavkouba.byl.cz