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Prevention and control of animal diseases worldwide
Part I: Economic analysis: prevention versus outbreak costs
4.2.1.2. Human resources
The availability of competent and well-trained human resources is an important dimension of the
countries’ preparedness to deal with animal diseases. Adequate expertise is essential to disease prevention
and control. According to the 2006 UNSIC survey (A236), the number of trained veterinarians derived
from existing official sources (as reported to the OIE Handistatus II database) varies considerably across
all countries in the various world regions, and disparities between country/regions remain even after
allowing for the size of the sector (in terms of the quantity of meat produced) per region/country (Figure
3).
These data and disparities between regions should be interpreted with caution. Firstly, there are significant
limitations in the data available on veterinary expertise. Secondly, it is difficult to make an objective
comparison of the different veterinary personnel situations in different countries because veterinary
systems and livestock structures / production systems (whether intensive or extensive, backyard or
industrial etc.) vary enormously between countries and these factors influence the optimal number of
required veterinary staff in each case (A80, A81, A92) 48 .
Generally, however, there should be some proportionality between the size of the sector and the number of
veterinarians 49 . In practice, this does not seem to be the case (Figure 3). For example, in the Americas, the
number of veterinarians per country in relation to the size of the sector (expressed in 100,000 tonnes of
meat produced) is 30-35% higher than in Europe, Asia and the Pacific (data for Europe include C. Asia),
over double than in Middle East and North Africa, and 12 times higher than in Africa.
48 There does not appear to be an optimal number of veterinarians as such. Every country has different veterinary
personnel conditions and needs, is at a different stage of development in its Veterinary Services, and employs a
different structure of veterinary staff categories (often mutually overlapping). Therefore, the impracticability of
setting a fixed and uniform international quantitative standard for Veterinary Services is recognised (A80).
49 Literature from the early 1990s (A81), quotes 20,000 Veterinary Livestock Units (VLUs) per veterinarian as the
appropriate ratio for curative and preventative work in the extensive and low-input livestock production systems in
Africa and the Middle East, compared to 2,500 VLUs in the high density and capital intensive production systems
found in Europe. For regions characterised by a combination of extensive and intensive production systems (North
and South America, Asia, Oceania) the average of the two above figures (i.e. 12,500 VLUs) is taken as a standard.
An analysis of 1989 data shows that the Middle east at the time has a surplus of veterinary personnel, while Africa
had a substantial deficit in veterinarians but a surplus in veterinary auxiliaries. (VLU: equivalent to 1 cow or 2 pigs
or 10 small ruminants or 100 fowl).
Civic Consulting • Agra CEAS Consulting 45