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UGA helps Iraq, Afghanistan prepare to rebuild their veterinary services |
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| By Dot Sparer |
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Keith W. Prasse, dean
of the College of Veterinary Medicine, attended the first International
Veterinary Conference in Kuwait City and participated in strategic
discussions to aid Iraq and Afghanistan in rebuilding veterinary education
and services in the two war-torn nations.
Prasse presented information to the conference attendees about research and postgraduate opportunities and requirements in the United States, while other U.S. presenters talked about veterinary college curricula, opportunities for training veterinarians and scientific exchange programs. Representatives from Iraq and Afghanistan outlined their problems and their needs for reviving veterinary medicine in their countries. According to Prasse, Iraq has seven established schools of veterinary medicine. Students receive their professional degree after five years of post-high school education, but they have few if any jobs available when they graduate. Historically veterinary services were provided free to citizens and funded by the government. “In Iraq the faculty are 25 years out of date because Saddam cut them off from the rest of the scientific world when he came to power in 1979,” Prasse says. “They’re dealing with destruction and inadequate energy supplies, and obviously security is a problem, but their infrastructure and supplies are in reasonably good shape. What’s missing there mainly is planning to reestablish services.” In Afghanistan students can attend two existing schools of veterinary medicine or a veterinary science department in an agricultural college, but employment is hard to find for these students as well, according to Prasse. “Afghanistan is literally rubble. They have one hour’s worth of electricity per day. We were told that although their veterinary college was rebuilt and two labs constructed with the help of funds from Japan and Italy, the building has no furniture, nothing on the walls, nothing on the floors, no reagents, no instruments, no library, nothing,” Prasse says. “According to some Afghan conferees, before the Taliban they had 75 faculty members. Today they have 10. The rest were killed in the wars. Yet they still have classes.” The Afghans veterinarians are more advanced than Iraqi veterinarians with their planning, although they’re starting from a lower level to reestablish veterinary education and services, according to Prasse. As a follow-up to the conference, Prasse will help identify agencies that might be approached for financial support to help develop veterinary education opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan. He will also procure information on developing policies and procedures for the kind of sanitary poultry processing used in U.S. processing plants. |
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