“The veterinary health is becoming more and more demanding, having any disease in the herd represents commercial barriers that are often insurmountable. Cristina Pérez del Amo thus confirms the importance of Zamora Provincial Animal Health Laboratory, dependent on the Castilla and leon meeting, where I know diagnose and monitor diseases to guarantee animal health, the first link in the chain of food safety that offers the consumer healthy, safe and quality food.
With one of the oldest Spanish sheep censuses and a relevant pig weightanimal health acquires a fundamental significance in the cattle hut zamorana. A powerful agri-food industry depends on the good health status of the animals – including cattle and goats –, both dairy, cheese and meat, which are fvery important sources of wealth in Zamora. “The higher the health standards, the easier access to commercial channels and the more markets will be available for animal trade” he argues. Pérez del Amo, director of the Zamora Animal Health Laboratory.
The center is a basic piece in the Health alert network, and therefore, the Epidemiological Surveillance System in Animal Health. Located in the complex of the Florence Farm, is part of the Network of Animal Health Laboratories of Castilla y León, made up of eight laboratories (one in each province) and a regional one located in León, which is the coordinating and reference center for the community.
Planas endorses the high health status of the livestock herd
A one hundred percent female templatemade up of three veterinary technicians and four laboratory assistants, carries out clinical trials on samples of animal origin for the investigation of diseases subject to official control.
The higher the health standards, the easier the access to commercial channels.
There are three reasons that classify these diseases. On the one hand, those that pose a risk to public health because they can be transmitted from animals to humans or vice versa. “It is estimated that between 65-70% of human diseases are zoonoticthat is, they could have their origin in animals.” This is the case of brucellosis, tuberculosis or avian flu, diseases subject to official control of this laboratory of the Board due to the risk they pose to the human population.
Diseases that do not pose a risk to the human population, but do pose a risk to the livestock herd, are also diagnosed, potentially causing losses in the livestock. production and limitations in livestock movement. For example, swine fever or foot and mouth disease that, “if they spread they can produce a lot of losses and, in an extreme case, become the ruin of the sector in a certain area,” says Pérez del Amo.
And thirdly, those diseases that compromise the health and diversity of wildlife are subject to official control, and therefore to laboratory diagnosis. For example, myxomatosis in lagomorphs (hares and rabbits) or hemorrhagic septicemia in fish. “In principle they do not pose a risk to people or animals, but they have to be monitored and subject to controls to know what the situation is and if for some reason the incidence increases.”
The Zamora livestock herd, “seasonally” free of EHE and Bluetongue
As a whole, the Zamora Provincial Animal Health Laboratory It performs more than one hundred thousand analyzes a year and diagnoses up to eleven diseases of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. Brucellosis is controlled in sheep and goats (the province has been officially free since 2013), a disease that began with a very high incidence, was reduced with the vaccine and is currently undergoing permanent surveillance. “Having achieved the status of officially free of a disease allows us not to bleed all the animals, although a random sampling of the farms is carried out to monitor the disease.”
It is also analyzedtuberculosis in goats, Maedi Visna/CAE disease (according to a program started in May 2007) and contagious agalactia, whose program was approved in December 2016. Regarding cattle, six diseases are diagnosed: brucellosis (the province has been officially free since 2017), tuberculosis, paratuberculosis , enzootic leukosis, contagious peripneumonia and infectious rhinotracheitis. Furthermore, it is diagnosed Aujeszky’s disease in pigs.
In the era of One Health, human health, animal health and the environment, animal health laboratories take on special relevance.
“We carry out the tests, but the measures to be adopted on each farm are the decision of the official veterinary services of the section of Animal Health and Production” specifies the director of the Provincial Laboratory, which since 2004 has operated in a new 1,200 square meter building. The center is distributed in the technical area, with a sample reception space, calibration room, serology laboratory, PCR laboratory and necropsy room. In addition, there is an administrative and warehouse area.
Zamorano ranchers support the new Animal Health Order
There samples are received through the official veterinary services (in the province there are 11 veterinary units), who are responsible for the health control of the farms in each region. Samples of environmental agents may also arrive by locating a suspiciously sick animal, for example, hares, bats, voles or fish due to a mortality in the river.
In this center, samples are also prepared and conditioned and sent to other laboratories where techniques are developed that the Zamora Animal Health Laboratory has not implemented, for example, extraction of sera for other serological diagnoses or extraction of brains for the diagnosis of rabies.
And furthermore, the functions of the laboratory are distribution of diagnostic material (tuberculin) or immunological material (vaccines); the preparation and distribution of materials for obtaining and preserving samples; salmonella diagnostic leggings, agalactia diagnostic swabs and media, antibiotics antifungals for preservation of viral samples. The programming of actions in collaboration with the Animal Health and Production Section of Zamora. The training of personnel assigned to the laboratory and students in internships, management of computer programs or recording of results and issuance of analysis reports.
The Board assumes greater control of fauna to avoid tuberculosis infections in Sayago livestock farms
He Animal Health Laboratory also serves veterinarians from Cooperatives, ADS and free or farm owners. who deliver samples for analysis. It provides technical advice to Veterinary Units and performs necropsies and takes samples on corpses of different animal species, as well as the management of clinical and biological waste.
In the face of a consumer with increasing quality demands, and when the One Health health concept emerges with force, human health, animal health and the environment, animal health laboratories take on special relevance as watchdogs and guardians of the chain that is born on the farm and reaches the table.
In this context Cristina Pérez del Amo alludes to the motto of the veterinary profession “Hygia pecoris, salus populi”, that is, the hygiene of the livestock is the health of the people. That is why these seven guardians watch over the Florencia Farm laboratory.