April Mission 2010: Veterinarians Without Borders (VWB) sent Drs. Roger Ellis and Julie Hunt to the West African nation of Liberia as part of a U.S. Navy humanitarian team that included medical doctors, dentists, optometrists, and veterinarians. During the three-week trip, Dr. Ellis concentrated on evaluating and treating livestock belonging to the non-governmental organization (NGO) Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance (ACDI/VOCA). Dr. Hunt worked on all species of animals, splitting her time between rabies control and deworming programs for dogs and cats and evaluating and treating livestock provided to Liberian farmers in projects supported by the NGO Samaritan's Purse. In addition, Drs. Ellis and Hunt trained paraveterinary personnel and livestock agents, worked to increase public awareness about the importance of veterinary care, performed disease surveillance, and met with governmental and NGO leaders to facilitate present interactions and establish links for future projects.

July Mission 2010: Our third trip to Liberia will focus on training Liberian animal health care workers to better recognize and prevent disease in animal populations throughout their country. Two veterinarians and five veterinary students from across the United States will participate in these training sessions, exposing the students to control methods for major diseases affecting animal populations around the world. Our focus is both in control of disease transmitted between animals and man, as well as major limiting diseases of livestock and wildlife. By reducing the number of cases of rabies in the animal populations we will affect a positive change in the likelihood that people will develop rabies as well. Because of the limited ability to treat people for rabies in Liberia, those who acquire the infection die. Similarly, uncontrolled diseases affecting livestock will reduce the ability for people to feed themselves high quality protein sources and they will have substantial losses in their wealth because of disease and death losses in their animal populations. By training US veterinarians in major diseases affecting animal health in underserved areas of the world we will increase our ability to prevent introduction or spread of diseases that have devastated economies in other parts of the world. The purpose of our missions are to increase food security and safety while improving animal health and welfare throughout the world.

World Nomad is assisting Veterinarians Without Borders with travel insurance for our students. Travel insurance from Worldnomads.com

For more information, please contact Dr. Thomas Graham DVM, MPVM, PhD, tgraham@dcn.davis.ca.us