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Opinion & Comment: Improving wildlife surveillance for its protection
Posted by: JimEdwards on Jul 18, 2008 - 09:05 PM
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<bWhile protecting us from the diseases it transmits
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 Wildlife diseases are of growing concern worldwide. In addition to threatening populations of wild animals themselves, wildlife disease can affect domestic animals and human health. This is particularly true in present days, when emerging diseases shared by both animals and humans increasingly come to our attention in the new context of globalisation of movement of commodities and climate change. Furthermore the legal and illegal market of wildlife which is estimated at a minimum of 6 billion US dollars is growing rapidly and also contributes to the global dissemination of new pathogens and emerging diseases. Therefore, a better understanding of diseases present in wildlife and their effects on wildlife, domestic animals and humans is of key importance to develop control measures.
The OIE calls the international community as a whole to support national Veterinary Services in order to strengthen their surveillance capacities of diseases in wildlife particularly in order to closely monitor what has the potential to become a threat to domestic animals and eventually to humans. The OIE will also continue to plead to safeguard natural ecosystems together with wild animal species which have survived the planetary upheavals, because they are global public goods.
For all this, the surveillance of wild animal diseases, the sanitary control of international trade of domestic and wild animals and animal products using OIE standards recognized by the World Trade Organisation, as well as the control of non appropriate transfer of invasive species and non desirable animals or plants are essential actions.
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Bernard Vallat
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