Journal of Veterinary Medicine and Health
Open Access

The main activity of a doctor is to safeguard the health of one or more individuals, drawing on his knowledge gained during university studies and professional practice. Good health and diseases prevention, in animals and even in human, is a good veterinarian’s goal. Anamnesis, visit and collateral examinations, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy are crucial points in this daily work. Evolution of times, the sudden climatic changes and adaptations of all organisms made this ancient work difficult, testing the adaptive skills of professionals in every sector. It’s even true that veterinarian plays a decisive role in food productions control which derives from animals. The occurrence of diseases, first relegated to tropical countries, in other temperate places, the resistance to antibiotics of numerous worldwide bacteria, the devastating presence and frequency of severe viral diseases and various oncogenic viruses, ever-increasing number of mutagenic agents, pollutants and not only, make more difficult the veterinarian life. For example, bovine Besnoitiosis is a protozoan disease of cattle caused by Besnoitia besnoiti, previously described in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, and become an emergent disease since the 1990`s in European countries such as Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Germany. Data of the last 10 years confirm its increased prevalence and geographic expansion. The disease causes cutaneous and systemic manifestations with significant economic losses. Besnoitia besnoiti (Apicomplexa, Sarcocystidae) has a heteroxenous life cycle, with both domestic (cattle) and wild bovids (antelopes) as intermediate hosts and a not yet identified definitive host. Horseflies and deer flies may play a role by transmitting Besnoitia besnoiti [1]. Today, the presence of numerous cases of Besnoitiosis in many European countries and also in the Italian cattle population evidences that the disease has found a favorable epidemiological condition for its establishment.

Listing and talking about emerging diseases would be too long. In Europe, Besnoitiosis is considered among these, but it is not a zoonosis. Other diseases in the world are worrying because they are transmissible to humans: atypical mycobacterial diseases, hepatitis E, avian influenza, Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE). We must not forget that others have not yet been eradicated in many parts of the world, for example some parasitic diseases such as cysticercosis or taeniasis and echinococcosis or hydatidosis. If we consider the ineffectiveness of many drugs (antibiotic resistance), and that other diseases can be transmitted between humans and from humans to animals, then the theater in which a doctor in human medicine or a veterinarian must work becomes complicated.

Medical sciences are not mathematical sciences, they are based on a lot of knowledge, but their predictions sometimes do not respond to the expectations, due to the occurrence of events not always identifiable. In this scenario, as often you can hear in Congresses and Conferences, if health is to be “One Health”, the goal of creating a solid and strong team is a good strategy to deal with these issues. Under these conditions, the continuous updating and information among different professional figures (veterinarians, human health specialists, biologists, agronomists, experts in chemistry and physical sciences, computer and statistical engineers, also geologists, etc.), play an important role in dealing with the new emerging human and animal health problems. The next step is to inform the rest of the world.

A good practice derives from a good grammar and a solid cultural background; for this reason, learning and integrating more knowledge must be a critical point for a good health organization. I wonder every day: “Is it a good health state more important than economic losses?” Healthy animals and humans make a good economy and together produce work and wealth that can ultimately reduce poverty and many other health hazards.