June 16th, 2023Vets striving to protect themselves from zoonotic diseases

Agriculture Victoria veterinary officers and pathologists have recently run a series of animal disease investigation courses for private veterinarians in four locations across Victoria.

These annual courses aim to increase veterinarians’ skills identify suspect emergency animal diseases and collect the right samples to support laboratory diagnosis.

This is critical to support early detection of an emergency animal diseases such as Foot and mouth disease or Lumpy skin disease.

These courses are financially supported by the cattle, sheep, goat, and pig compensation funds.

The courses cover a range of topics including disease investigation, field epidemiology, biosecurity, and advanced post-mortem techniques.

Due to the nature of their work, veterinarians are regularly exposed to diseases that can be passed between animals and humans, also known as zoonotic diseases.

During the course, participating veterinarians were set a quiz to create a list of zoonotic diseases of cattle found in Australia.

Words: Dr Jeff Cave, Senior Veterinary Officer, Agriculture Victoria