OIE announces World Veterinary Day Award

To celebrate the World Veterinary Day (WVD) that will take place globally on 30 April 2016, the World Veterinary Association (WVA) and the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) are organizing the World Veterinary Day Award 2016 to reward the most successful contribution by the veterinary profession on the selected theme for 2016: Continuing Education with a One Health focus.

The competition is open to all WVA member associations, alone, or in cooperation with any other selected body.

The winner association of the 2016 Award will be presented at the Opening Ceremony of the OIE 84th General Session to be held in Paris, France on 22nd May 2016.

In the current era of globalization, the emergence or re-emergence of unexpected sanitary events is accelerating. It is estimated that five new emerging infectious human diseases appear each year, of which three are zoonotic. The recent Ebola epidemic as well as the too numerous human deaths caused each year by rabies, dreadfully remind us of the strong links existing between the health of people, animals and environment and consequently the need for multi-sectoral approaches illustrated through the 'One Health' concept.

All countries depend on the performance of their national Veterinary Services, in their public and private components, not only to successfully control these diseases, but also to tackle food safety issues and to effectively prevent and control any biological disasters. Therefore, veterinarians should be well trained to preserve animal health and welfare, as well as to tackle public health issues.

Provided that the Veterinary profession and science are constantly evolving, continuing Education is essential for veterinarians to keep their knowledge updated with the latest developments, skills, and new technologies required to enable them to efficiently control health risks at their animal source.

Therefore, this year, the WVD's theme focuses on how veterinarians continue their education efforts to increase their expertise on One Health topics, such as zoonotic diseases, food safety or antimicrobial resistance, and how they collaborate with the human health sector to tackle these issues.

The organizers will select the winners according to the quality of their project and activities, their ability to raise awareness on the topic, through communications materials and media coverage in their country, as well as their capacity to demonstrate a concrete implementation of the 'One health' approach

For the first time this year, entrants have the possibility to present activities that took place before World Veterinary Day 2016, that are still on-going, or that are planned to take place in the future.

For application information, visit the OIE website.