Thiruvananthapuram Corporation to seek vets for human beings

Thiruvananthapuram: There are doctors who think that a vet for human beings is a good idea. They say this will help deal with zoonotic diseases, which are transmitted from animals to humans. Based on their recommendation, Thiruvananthapuram Corporation will be submitting a representation to the state government to introduce a post called public health veterinarian. The idea for a public health veterinarian first came up during a seminar conducted by Animal Husbandry Department as part of ‘Vishukkani’, the agriculture and industrial expo conducted by the Corporation. The representation will be submitted to LSG department.

It had both human doctors and veterinarians as participants. Dr Prem Jain, senior veterinary surgeon, Veterinary Hospital, Pettah, says, “Animals are carriers of several infectious diseases found in humans. It is the time that we introduced a discipline to coordinate the services of both human and veterinary doctors.”

Veterinarians, according to Dr Jain, are making some efforts to ensure coordination at their individual level. “If someone brings a cow suspected to be rabid, the doctors would ask the person to head to General Hospital. However, there should be a system to monitor and control zoonotic diseases properly,” he says.

Coordinated efforts will help send out alerts when there is an incidence of a zoonotic disease in an animal before it infects humans. Rabies, anthrax, tuberculosis, cutaneous leishmaniasis, ehrlichia and scrub typhus are a few zoonotic diseases.

Two years ago, a case of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Kollam set doctors thinking. Before that, the last reported case of the disease in humans was 25 years ago. During this time, the disease was reported in animals.

Doctors say that even though there may have been any incidence during the gap period, it would not have got diagnosed as the possibility of its occurrence would not even have occurred to the human doctors.

Another zoonotic disease which made headlines recently was the Kyasanur Forest disease. Humans can also contract the disease, while it normally occurs in monkeys.