The A-Z of everything veterinary (and animals): F is for Freedom from Disease

Siôn Rowlands

It’s 2052.

For 3 years people in Britain, across Europe, and large parts of the globe have barely survived in a dystopia of biblical proportion. The availability of meat is scarce, our livestock farms have been ravaged by unprecedented cases of exotic animal diseases. The most recent African Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth Disease case numbers support that over 60% of our cattle, sheep, and pig farms have been affected.

It’s the middle of July, and as the temperature hits 30 degrees, for the 10th consecutive day, mounds of recently diseased and now decomposing farm animal carcasses blight our once beautiful rural landscapes. Carcasses cannot be collected quickly enough by the authorities resulting in pathogen-rich discharge oozing into low-level water courses endangering pockets of hitherto unaffected nearby animals as they seek to quench their thirst.

Cases of BSE, ‘mad cow disease’, have risen exponentially, further impacting the availability of meat and posing significant and serious questions about the risk of humans being exposed. Vegetables, fruit cereals, and oils are in very limited supply as trade, in particular imports into the UK, has largely stopped. Those countries who can sustain their populations on the produce they have grown and raised (net exporters) have opted to stop exporting, with any spare food stored until the grim outlook improves.

Rabies

The surge in demand for global rabies vaccine stock sees Britain failing to secure suitable numbers to vaccinate its naive human population quickly enough. There have now been ten human deaths since January, all contracting this fatal viral disease(rabies) following bites from rabid animals, with some infected from their own beloved pets who were bitten initially by diseased wildlife.

And relax. The above is by no means a forecast, far from it. It’s merely an absolute worst-case hypothesis, one we could only potentially begin to face if the detailed infrastructure of extensive regulatory controls and ubiquitous activities conducted daily (in Britain and countries across the world) suddenly ground to a halt. It simply won’t happen.

Workforce

Everyone will have a well-established view of the people who make up our traditional veterinary workforce. Whether following a visit with pets to a local veterinary practice or seeing calves being pulled in the early hours of the morning on a James Herriot style TV drama, the British public has imprinted images of the classic veterinary roles. Less well known are those vets, technicians, and support staff that work tirelessly to ensure our borders are safe from animal disease incursion, our food-producing animals are free of exotic diseases, and imperative controls are implemented and followed to protect the public. These vets form part of the government’s veterinary services.

There are hundreds of well-established controls ubiquitously delivered throughout every day by hundreds of staff largely operating outside the public’s view. There is no off switch for the workforce of government vets and their technical colleagues. There are vets awake in the very early hours of the morning overseeing crucial ante- and postmortem examinations of farm animals that pass through Britain’s abattoirs. Examinations that ensure the safety of our food, that the welfare of the animals are to the standards required, and checking for signs of diseases that can have a profound impact on Britain’s rural economy and beyond e.g. Foot and Mouth.

There are government vets on call 24/7 ready to respond to reports of the suspicion of exotic diseases in live animals on farms across the British Isles – even on the remote islands of Scotland. These vets are called upon to swiftly identify, sample, and execute detailed measures to halt and control the spread of any disease. There are vets, along with their scientific colleagues, who are conducting groundbreaking research into novel vaccines, exploring and influencing the future in a world of antibiotic resistance, and pressing for improvements to animal welfare legislation.

Government vets, and their colleagues, are a significant piece of the jigsaw in ensuring the safety of Britain. The illegal import of unvaccinated pets and the subsequent risk of introducing rabies, the migration of avian influenza infected birds, and illicit feeding of kitchen waste (containing swine fever virus) to pet pigs are but a small set of examples of where controls can be challenging, sometimes even bypassed. However, whilst government vets continue to advise, respond, and play their vital roles, Britain can know that there is a safety net in place.

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of a Vet by Siôn Rowlands is published by Two Roads and is available from all good bookshops.