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

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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 UK) or not at all = further free mass spreading in susceptible populations. To import the infections is relatively easy, however to detect and eradicate them is very difficult up to impossible and then they can continue to spread and last for a very long time in affected populations (multiplying impact). As a nearest example it can be mentioned the virus of African swine fever imported in Italy in 1978 and still “surviving” in Sardinia. Therefore, I would like to recommend the EMPRES programme to be expanded also against the propagation of animal infections through international trade what is extremely important due to long distance, including intercontinental, disease transmission.

 

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