By Fiona Allan
In March, I attended the annual conference of the Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (SVEPM), in Toulouse, France, along with my colleague Christian Schnier. The Society’s mission is to ‘enable professionals to meet and share knowledge to improve the health of animals, humans and the environment’. It was an ideal opportunity to share SEBI-Livestock work on supporting evidence-based interventions.
In a session on ‘Health and Production’, I presented work on reducing camel young stock mortality in Ethiopia. The pilot study was conducted by the Young Stock Mortality Reduction Consortium, of which SEBI-Livestock was part, and describes highly significant reductions in mortality and morbidity of young stock after working with pastoralists to implement basic health and husbandry measures. The session was shared with Wudu Jemberu from the GBADs Program (Global Burden of Animal Diseases) who presented a framework for estimating the economic burden of small ruminant morbidity and mortality in Ethiopia, which indicated potential for improvement by health interventions. Delegates showed keen interest in the interventions and outcomes, with thought-provoking questions and several side conversations following the presentation.
- Read the paper: Reducing camel young stock mortality in Ethiopia
- Related story: Simple measures can reduce Young Stock Mortality in Ethiopia
Christian presented a poster on Systematic mapping of reproductive performance of cattle in sub-Saharan Africa , where we found an abundance of studies in Ethiopia and Kenya, and very few in the other six countries included. As expected, there was great variation in the measures of fertility reported. Christian gave a lively two-minute ‘flash talk’ to promote this work. Posters were on display for the duration of the conference and were promoted and attended well.
Notable topics
Sessions covered multiple topics including transmission and intervention modelling, communication and behaviour, surveillance, and disease impacts. An important message was the need for a long-term approach for monitoring and modelling to contribute to decision making. Recommendations from talks included the need to involve social scientists in research, and the importance of using qualitative data in combination with quantitative data. Participants also noted the need for clear communication between scientists and stakeholders.
Several presentations and discussions mentioned the importance of understanding the effectiveness of interventions. This requires understanding the burden of disease in order to prioritise control interventions, and the costs associated. Tom Kirk from AbacusBio presented a poster on the economic analysis of interventions in cattle and small ruminant young stock in Ethiopia. An extended manuscript of our Young Stock Mortality work is now under journal peer-review, and we anticipate its publication later in the year.
There were limited but important mentions of cattle fertility and reproductive performance, with fertility measures being important metrics in herd productivity and profitability. In discussions, delegates were enthusiastic about SEBI-L working on mapping the evidence on cattle reproductive performance, an area otherwise lacking in attention. We are continuing in this area of research and hope to disseminate further findings in the near future.
The conference had record attendance this year, with 239 delegates joining from 31 countries. With a single plenary lecture hall, most delegates joined all talks and contributed with stimulating discussions. The event was superbly organised by the SVEPM committee, with a vibrant social programme as well, encouraging enthusiastic interaction between colleagues and peers within and across disciplines, and allowing research outputs to be shared interactively.
Next year’s conference will be in Uppsala, Sweden – we hope to see you there!
Dr. Fiona Allan is a postdoctoral research writer with SEBI-Livestock.