Internationally the inputs of the veterinary profession are critical to ensure sustainability of the production of safe food of animal origin, import and export control, certification of disease status, the control of zoonoses and veterinary public health.

The critical factors according to which the contribution of the veterinary profession in any country should be measured include:

• Increasing the health and welfare of the communities of South Africa indirectly through poverty reduction and wealth creation
• Enabling the economic production in the various livestock sectors of sustainable and sufficient amounts of safe animal protein for consumption by the citizens of the country, and by-products needed by various manufacturing sectors
• Veterinary public health and human well-being
• Animal welfare, and
• Sustainable biodiversity

The veterinary fraternity essentially provides the following broad competencies to address these needs:

• National and international control of diseases of economic importance to the livestock sector (OIE list A and B diseases)
• Disease surveillance of livestock and other animals to enable the disease status of the country to be adequately defined for national and international trade purposes and access to local and international markets
• Diagnostic services of international standards
• Certification of the disease status of individual animals, populations and products of livestock for the purpose of local and international trade and access to markets
• Expertise in veterinary public health
• The control of zoonotic diseases and transmission of these diseases to humans
• Import and export control in terms of international conventions (SPS agreements; WTO and OIE criteria) and to safeguard the country from the entry of foreign animal diseases
• Epidemiology and data management for the purpose of risk assessment and management, and policy development
• The provision of veterinary primary health care to and upliftment of indigent communities
• Sustaining biodiversity by attending to environmental health to foster ecotourism
• Research pertaining to the needs of the livestock sector and the health of humans exposed to diseases transmitted from animals to humans
• Attending to the individual health needs of animals of all sectors of the community

It is unlikely that any other group of professionals could offer the services currently provided by veterinarians provided:

• They are adequately trained
• The required resources exist to allow service delivery, and
• There are adequate career opportunities and career paths that would attract competent professionals into the domains in which they are needed

The veterinary profession exists globally and plays a critical role in many fields pertaining to the health of animals and the health and welfare of humankind. Depending on the specific country (developed or developing; wealthy or poor), the type and sophistication of the services offered differ. Thus, in the more wealthy countries, most of the activities of veterinarians revolve around the provision of medical services for companion animals (dogs, cats, horses and other animals kept as pets); veterinarians in private practice provide these services. Funding for sustaining these services come from private, disposable income – the stronger the economy and the more favourable the income of any country, the greater the likelihood that there will be a strong veterinary private practice component in cities and larger towns attending to the veterinary needs of pets.

In less affluent and developing societies, most of the veterinary activities are supported by government and are focussed on the needs of government and society as a whole. These societies pay little attention to the health and welfare of individual pets and services are particularly poor in rural areas.

The veterinary profession internationally provides a range of services that address the private and public needs of society as they relate to animals. Many of these needs are generic and do not differ from country to country across the world.

There is, however, a range of factors that influence the type and nature of services required in a specific country. Some of the more important ones include:

• The degree of development of a country or region
• Its state of economic development
• The state of its agricultural development
• Scope and sustainability of its livestock sector
• Cultural and ethnic preferences, and traditions, and
• Governance

Many of these services, and the norms and standards regulating provision of these services, exist internationally and are negotiated in the World Trade Organisation in association with the OIE (World Veterinary Health Organisation). These norms and standards determine the way in which diseases are controlled, how animals are moved, and how trade is conducted with livestock and their products within and between countries.

The more affluent the society, particularly in the western world, the more the emphasis is on private veterinary services that address the needs of the commercial farming sector, and companion animals of the rich and those with sufficient disposable income to pay for these services. In these societies too, the need to have access to safe food (animal protein) of specified origin drives the need for increasingly sophisticated control measures in the production chain of these products. Import and export controls, particularly to protect local and international markets and to gain sustainable access to new markets drive the need for increasingly sophisticated veterinary services and regulations.

In the developing world (and particularly in the case of the poorer nations in that category), the needs are different. Here they revolve around the implementation of policies to drive development: poverty reduction, provision of sustainable sources of animal protein, the control of zoonoses, the control of important diseases of animals (epidemic and TADs), and primary health care specifically to benefit humans.

In South Africa, because of the apartheid policies of previous governments, an anomalous situation exists. There is a marked distinction between the needs of and services available to the urban and rural white communities, commonly considered to be the affluent part of the South African society, and the generically black population of the country, particularly in the rural areas, in which case these services are poor or virtually non-existent.

The needs driving service delivery to a well-developed commercial farming sector and companion animal population, and of a largely under-developed rural and urban population, are different, complex and often contradictory. In the case of South Africa, there is a need to sustain the services to the commercial sector and at the same time to increase the scope and efficiency of services to the poor sector of the population.

It is against this background that the Faculty of Veterinary Science has developed undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in veterinary and para-veterinary sciences to meet the demands of all the people of South Africa. The Faculty finds itself in the unique situation that it is the only one of its kind in the country following the amalgamation of the Faculties of Veterinary Science of the University of Pretoria and of MEDUNSA. This places enormous responsibilities on it to meet the diverse needs of:

• A well developed commercial farming sector
• A growing and rapidly-expanding emerging farming sector
• A sophisticated commercial industrial sector
• A well-developed equine and wildlife industry
• The wide-ranging needs of individual pet owners and welfare organizations

The Faculty of Veterinary Science, as the sole provider in South Africa of suitably trained person power in this regard, plays a crucial role in the ability of the country to ensure that its people will have access to:

• Safe, wholesome food of animal origin
• Relevant, cost-effective veterinary services at all levels of society
• Proper disease control mechanisms aiding not only the production of wholesome food of animal origin but also ensuring public health and human well-being
• Import and export arrangements to the benefit of the entire country

The benefits of a proper and well-functioning training institution is not only limited to the benefit of citizens of the country but also extends beyond the borders of the country to the region, specifically the SADC community and other southern African countries with close economic ties with South Africa. The entire NEPAD initiative stands to gain through the effective functioning of this institution.

In order to fulfil this role, the Faculty must be nationally and internationally acceptable and enjoy the accompanying credibility without which its efforts to bring about change and development will be invalid. It has to adhere to specific national and international criteria to maintain the local and international recognition and acceptance that it already has. In order to do so, it has to maintain, and further improve, the standard of excellence that it already enjoys through adherence to international norms and standards of training and accreditation by international authorities.

The Faculty of Veterinary Science is an integral part of the University of Pretoria and conducts its affairs within the context of the institutional vision, mission and policies. Its activities are guided by the strategy drivers of the University of Pretoria and are embodied in its strategic vision:

Our mission is to:

• Provide relevant formal training
• Provide opportunities for lifelong learning
• Render appropriate high quality veterinary services
• Attract sustainable funding through budget innovation
• Increase research outputs through effective postgraduate programmes
• Actively promote employment equity and student diversity
• Recruit, retain and performance manage the "best people"
• Negotiate competitive remuneration packages, and
• Maintain a suitable infrastructure

The Faculty consists of the following economic entities

• Veterinary Science General – Academic and General Administration
• Department of Anatomy and Physiology
• Department of Companion Animal Clinical Studies
• Department of Paraclinical Sciences
• Department of Production Animal Studies
• Department of Veterinary Tropical Diseases
• Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital (OVAH)
• Equine Research Centre (ERC)
• Wildlife Unit (WLU)
• Onderstepoort Teaching Animal Unit (OTAU)

The staff of the five academic departments are primarily responsible for the academic and research activities of the Faculty and jointly with others, for the service-rendering functions of the Faculty. These include training-related clinical and laboratory services as well as a range of other advisory and consultancy services.

The OVAH provides the infrastructure for the training of veterinary and para-veterinary students as well as the accompanying provision of clinical services required for experiential training. OTAU provides the infrastructure for the proper training of veterinary and para-veterinary students in the practical aspects of animal husbandry, nutrition, handling, ethology (behaviour) and production.

The ERC and WLU are essentially research units but also provide a wide spectrum of training opportunities and sophisticated services.

Recognition of veterinary training internationally requires access to a veterinary hospital, diagnostic and research laboratories, and an animal farm. These requirements and the duration of the course required to train veterinarians, are the main reasons why veterinary training internationally is exceedingly expensive.

The Faculty annually receives an allocation from the University based on its strategic plan. The allocation provides for staff remuneration, operating expenditures, capital equipment, research, and support functions, and is based on the subsidy allocation to Universities provided by the Department of Education.

Due to the relative small size of the Faculty and the very specific nature of the infrastructure, that it must maintained to meet the international minimum requirements in veterinary education. The subsidy allocation is currently much less than the funding required to sustain the activities of the Faculty. This is not a new development since a deficit existed from the time that the University of Pretoria took full responsibility for veterinary training in 1973.

The required infrastructure includes the OVAH and OTAU and a range of research and service laboratories that support under and postgraduate programmes in the faculty in addition to the OVAH and other service-rendering activities of the Faculty. It should be specifically noted that the University is at a disadvantage in this aspect as the funding for similar training facilities in Faculties of Allied Health Services at the University of Pretoria and other universities are provided by national and provincial Departments of Health. In the case of veterinary science, all the funding is provided by the Department of Education according to the standard subsidy formulas.

To ensure the continuation of the Faculty’s activities at an acceptable level, the University of Pretoria has provided adequate funds to sustain veterinary training over many years through a process of cross-subsidisation. Whereas the principle is sound, the level of such cross-subsidisation, however, has reached proportions where it can no longer be maintained since it has specific detrimental effects on other faculties in the University particularly seen against the background in the substantial reduction in subsidy generated by the activities of the University.

The Faculty is well positioned to provide a general infrastructure for the provision of additional services to both the commercial sector as well as the emerging and less formal sectors of society. It cannot fulfill the general expectations under the current funding restraints and will not be able to sustain its current level of activities in the future should the financial position of the faculty not drastically improve.

For the country, it is of the utmost importance that the Faculty should be in a position to continue and improve its activities in order to meet the needs of society. It is equally important that it should be credible at the national and international level to ensure the acceptability of services and policies in the global environment of international trade, community upliftment and the development of the scarcest resource of all, the people of our country.