The Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of the University of Concepción and the Veterinary Service of the Chilean Army held the second version of the Public Health Seminar, with the aim of contributing to the updating of veterinary public health concepts.
The seminar was part of the commemoration of the 51 years of the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences UdeC and the 125 years of the Army Veterinary Service.
The activity, which lasted two days, included presentations on topics such as emerging diseases, zoonoses, respiratory protection for high exposure to pesticides and microbiological agents, the effect of the use of pesticides on pollinators, among others, where Dr. Luis stood out. Fernando Leanes, PAHO/WHO representative in Chile, on the challenges of public health from a veterinary perspective.
One of the coordinators of the activity, the academic and director of the Master’s in Veterinary Sciences and Master’s in Technology and Food Safety of Animal Origin programs, Dr. Reinaldo Letelier, highlighted that “it is an activity that we are proud to be able to carry out and be the headquarters for such a well-known initiative, where institutions such as SAG, Achipia, PAHO/WHO, ISP participated. We believe that it is essential that our colleagues and future colleagues be able to deepen and continue working on veterinary public health guidelines that include human, animal and environmental health. These three elements make up the ‘One Health’ concept, key to ensure that this guideline does not remain on paper and is taken to something more tangible”.
For his part, Colonel Miguel Moya, a veterinarian trained at the UdeC and head of the Veterinary Service of the Chilean Army, who spoke about “military veterinarians in operations other than war”, appreciated this seminar and pointed out that “the The Army has many areas of development, one of them being veterinary medicine, for this reason we also wanted to contribute to development and knowledge through this instance that addressed various topics”.
Likewise, the veterinary officer of the Regiment No. 9 “Chillán”, Captain César Rodríguez, also a former student of this school, added that “this has allowed us to update ourselves in terms of respiratory protection, body and hand protection, which ultimately corresponds to some of the essential elements that allow us to carry out basic sanitation tasks and others such as service to the community, for example, the work we did during the recent fires, where we supported the care of burned animals, but we also addressed the environmental problem that was generated, because there were areas where sadly there were not only burned animals, but many animals died and this required proper handling of these corpses so that there was no environmental contamination and particularly of water courses “.
Given the high interest that the day aroused, the organizers are already coordinating the third version in 2024.
Text: Francisca Olave
