The World Veterinary Day is an annual event created in year 2000 by the World Veterinary Association (WVA) to highlight and promote the role played by the Veterinarians. It is celebrated on the last Saturday of April and every year there is a different theme. Currently it is estimated that there are over 1.8 million Vets across the world with around 63000 registered Veterinarians in India. The 21st World Veterinary Day is being celebrated on 24th of April, 2021 with the theme “Veterinarian response to the COVID-19 crisis.”
The COVID-19 Pandemic has led to around 3.1 million deaths worldwide and there seems to be no end to this pandemic as the cases are day by day rising. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, originated from wild animals (likely bats) in China. Due to mutations the virus developed the ability to infect humans and spread efficiently from person to person. However, there is no evidence to suggest that a naturally infected animal is capable of transmitting infection back to humans.
The lockdown imposed in the wake of COVID-19 cropped up peculiar challenges to the Veterinarians. Owing to restrictions the Animal Healthcare suffered and the Veterinarians responded by Telemedicine and Extension activities were carried out on the Virtual Platform. One of the major challenges of COVID-19 was the misinformation spread on the social media platforms regarding the consumption of Animal products particularly Chicken meat and Eggs as it was claimed that COVID spread through them. This not only deprived the masses of the nutritious and immunity-boosting animal products, but also caused losses to farmers. Later it was clarified by Government and Veterinarians that properly handled and cooked animal products were safe to eat.
The COVID-19 crises highlighted the role of Veterinarians vis-à-vis human health and reiterated the significance of the “One Health Concept” according to which the sound human health is dependent on healthy animals living in a healthy environment. Besides providing health care to the dumb creatures, Vets ensure food and livelihood security to the humans worldwide. Safeguarding human health from Zoonotic diseases by controlling the infections at the source thereby preventing the jump of infectious agents to humans is also a prerogative of the vets.
Treating COVID-19 patients is the domain of Medicos. However, Veterinarians can play a role in the sphere of research, particularly testing human samples and even drug and Vaccine development by working on animal models, more so in the midst of a pandemic when there is shortage of healthcare professionals. Though the testing of animal samples for detecting various emerging and reemerging diseases is a matter of routine for the Veterinary Labs, but the testing of human samples by Vets was hitherto unprecedented. Notably the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, Dr. Albert Boulra, a doctor of Veterinary Medicine with a Ph.D. in Reproductive Biotechnology from Veterinary School of Aristotle University developed Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. This is a true reflection of the critical role of Veterinarians in Public Health and yet again emphasizes the concept of One Health.
Given the widespread nature of COVID-19 pandemic that necessitated large scale testing, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) gave nod to the premier Veterinary Institutes of the country for COVID-19 Testing of Human samples when the latter volunteered for the same. In this context the various State Veterinary Universities such as Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Agriculture Science University (GADVASU) and Institutes under Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) have conducted COVID-19 Human Sample testing, thereby relieving the Medical institutes from the huge load of sample testing.
In fact the ICAR Institutes such as Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) Izatnagar, National Research Center on Equines (NRCE) Hisar; National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) Bhopal, Directorate on Foot & Mouth Disease (DFMD) Mukteshwar have tested 213207, 178304, 20155 and 67905 Human samples for COVID-19 respectively with at total of 479571 samples tested for COVID-19 (till 14th April, 2021).
Veterinarians across the globe at different levels are trying their bit to help the healthcare professionals, the Corona warriors, in their fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The celebration of World Veterinary Day-2021 reiterates the importance of One Health Concept that the sound health of humans is dependent on healthy animals living in a healthy environment.
Dr. Zubair Ahmad War has studied Livestock Production and Management (LPM).