Safeguarding public and animal health
Med-Vet-Net Association
This group replaces the former Med-Vet-Net Network and was officially launched in Brussels in October 2009.
VLA was one of the founding members of Med-Vet-Net which was funded by the European Union until 2009.
It brought together scientists from all over Europe to share and enhance their knowledge and skills, develop collaborative projects and present joint research.
Med-Vet-Net Association
The Association is now self-funding with 14 scientific partners and takes over from where the Network left off. It will continue to strengthen existing partnerships and build new collaborations as part of its work on the control and prevention of zoonoses for the benefit of public health.
What are zoonoses?
Zoonoses are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. Zoonotic diseases cause many of our most serious health problems. The European Union (EU) has recently identified 23 agents causing zoonotic diseases. These agents must be monitored in both human and animal populations by all Med-Vet-Net members. Food supply is an increasinlgy global industry and the microbiological safety of food is recognised as a major public health concern for the EU.
Zoonotic diseases have always represented a risk to humans but recent events have shown us that these risks can change as a result of:
- global travel and international livestock trade
- increasing encroachment of man and livestock into previously un-inhabited areas
- increasing contact between man and exotic animals as pets
- changes in livestock production including intensification
- shifts in human eating and food preparation habits
- mutations resulting in increased virulence of organisms
- development of new transmission routes
- increasingly susceptible human populations.