engleski

The role of veterinarians in food safety

The veterinary profession is considered to be a profession dealing with the treatment of animals. Candidate students of veterinary medicine express “love for animals” to be the most important reason for enrolment into this study. However, few people will perceive the veterinarian as an expert who protects human health, including veterinarians themselves. In case of farm animals, vets are in the service of human health by implementing national surveillance and diagnostic programmes aimed at detecting the presence of zoonoses (such as salmonellosis, tuberculosis, brucellosis) or by controlling the production of food of animal origin in the food industry (e.g. protecting people from “mad cow disease”, trichinellosis, cysticercosis etc.). There are many other examples where public health is in the focus of veterinarians’ work, which is often ignored and forgotten. When veterinary medicine is mentioned in the media, it is mostly in the context of “expensive veterinary services”, certain scandals with food/animal traceability or unfit meat placed on the market. It may be stated that most meat-borne zoonoses (like TBC, cysticercosis, TSE) have been almost completely eradicated thanks to the systematic work of the veterinary inspection, as well as the veterinary profession in general. Nowadays, meat hygiene faces other hazards and risks: the veterinary profession takes on even more importance in the context of an integrated meat safety assurance system and risk-based approach in official controls. Namely, doctors of veterinary medicine are the most competent in identifying, analysing and bringing together all the factors that may threaten meat safety (and other food of animal origin) through the whole agri-food chain. In this sense, in order to detect health risks, the comprehensive approach in the meat production and inspection must include veterinary knowledge of primary production and meat hygiene, along with all the available information from the entire production system. During the assessment of meat safety in the slaughterhouse, it is important to analyse Food Chain Information (FCI), epidemiological indicators, herd health, animal welfare and hygiene practice of a slaughterhouse/farm. In that context, the importance of a veterinary practitioner at farm level is obvious, as well as the flow of food chain information from farm to slaughterhouse and vice versa. The role of a veterinarian is therefore extensive and includes the protection and control of animal health and welfare, zoonoses and assurance of safe animal products for human consumption, promotion of animal reproduction and veterinary protection of the environment. With regard to the veterinary public health work, veterinary activities related to human health protection are carried out by applying animal health and food and feed hygiene regulations. Doctors of veterinary medicine who work in the public health area are closely related to other professions. Thus, a few years ago, the concept called “One Health” was set up, representing the worldwide initiative and strategy of spreading interdisciplinary cooperation and communication within the framework of common health protection of humans and animals, as well as the environment. In the area of food production and control, the above mentioned concept is called “One Agri-Food Health”, which includes chain-based activities and measures of animal health and welfare protection, human and plant health protection, animal by-products control, environment protection, control of food and feed hygiene and safety, as well as transport controls of goods (import and export). The role of authorised veterinarians and veterinary inspectors in such farm-to-table control system will be presented in this lecture.

food safety, veterinary profession

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