Veterinary Medicine's Role in World Health and Food Production

Abstract

With your permission I would like to reverse the order of this presentation and we will discuss food production first. I choose this change principally because it follows more realistically the preceding speakers and in view of the recently held World Food Conference in Rome, food production is avital constituent of improvement of human health in the world. Also many of the veterinary medical aspects of public health involve the food producing animals.

The information presented here will be limited to the Americas because of the extensive programs of the PAHO in this field.

In the region of the Americas, animal diseases represent some of the major problems of human and animal health· significance that greatly affect food production.