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Additional Perspectives in Veterinary Public Health Education
Training Veterinary Personnel for
Effective Identification and Diagnosis of
Exotic Animal Diseases
Carmel M. Kerwick gJoanne Meers gClive J.C. Phillips
ABSTRACT
The requirements for exotic animal disease (EAD) training were considered at a workshop organized for those with
responsibilities for EAD response management in the different states of Australia, with the objective of identifying the
optimum strategy for training veterinarians to identify and act upon EADs. It was concluded that there should be specialized
within-country training in EAD recognition for an elite group of diagnostic veterinarians who are required to recognize the
major exotic diseases of animals, instigate the correct procedures to confirm the diagnosis of the disease, and undertake
appropriate measures for effective initial management of the disease. The use of live, deliberately infected animals for
demonstration purposes is not currently supported by any research indicating an improved learning outcome compared with
that from alternatives, such as videos, necropsy specimens, and dedicated computer-aided learning packages. Therefore,
ethical requirements to minimize the use of animals in teaching and research may prevent live-animal use. It is concluded
that training should take place within each country via a course of instruction that includes an initial intensive course followed
by continued professional development, with examination of knowledge at the end of each.
Key words: exotic animal disease, foreign animal disease, veterinary training
INTRODUCTION
Previously the term ‘‘exotic animal disease’’ (EAD) has
referred to a disease exotic to the country of interest that has
the potential for serious socioeconomic consequences if an
outbreak occurs. In recent years the terms ‘‘transborder
animal disease’’ (TAD) and ‘‘foreign animal disease’’ (FAD)
have also been used. The term ‘‘emergency animal disease’’
is more generic and can refer to a TAD, an unusual outbreak
of an endemic disease, or an outbreak of a new or emerging
disease.
International responsibility for EADs rests principally with
the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which
approved the formation of a single list of notifiable
diseases in May 2005. This list came into effect in 2006
and is the reference point for exotic or emergency
animal diseases. One of the OIE’s aims is to disseminate
information on disease preparedness among member
countries; member countries have the opportunity to
contribute to the Information on Disease Emergency
Preparedness section of the OIE Web site. Countries
that have published their full dossiers on the OIE site
include Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Estonia.
Other countries have published disease specific dossiers,
such as the United Kingdom’s dossier on foot-and-mouth
disease.
This article focuses on issues associated with the training
of veterinary personnel involved in the initial diagnosis
of an EAD. It is recognized that other strategies are
also important in limiting the spread of EADs, such
as restrictions on livestock movement and implementation
of a national livestock identification scheme to aid
traceability.
OVERVIEW OF EXOTIC DISEASE PREPAREDNESS
The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United
Nations provides a manual
1
for disease preparedness that
can be adapted by individual countries. Preparedness
depends on, first, early warning of a threat and, second,
early response to that threat. Early warning strategies that
relate to training include
.developing good farmer and public awareness and
strategies to strengthen the farmer–veterinarian bond
.training field veterinary staff and veterinary auxiliary
staff to recognize serious epidemic diseases
In the section titled ‘‘Training of Veterinarians and Other
Animal Health Staff in Early Recognition of Emergency
Diseases,’’ the FAO manual states,
Obviously, it will be neither practicable nor
necessary to train personnel to a high level of
expertise in these diseases. In most cases it is
sufficient for trainees to be familiar with the basic
clinical, pathological and epidemiological
features of risk diseases and to know what to
do if they suspect one of these diseases ...To
ensure early recognition of emergency diseases,
all veterinarians and animal health workers
should be trained to recognize basic clinical
features, and to report immediately on any
suspicions that arise during their everyday
work.
1
The manual further states that ‘‘More specialized training
will be needed for personnel who are nominated as
members of specialist diagnostic teams.’’ These teams
JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC 255
would normally consist of a pathologist, an epidemiologist,
a veterinarian highly experienced in epidemic diseases, and
other relevant specialists (e.g., entomologist). In Australia,
mainly because of large distances and sparse population,
there is some overlap of designations, with many field
officers receiving specialist EAD diagnostic training.
TRAINING OF VETERINARY PERSONNEL
The first line of defense against EADs should be provided
by people working with animals on a routine basis,
particularly if those animals are at high risk of acquiring
novel infections through contact with introduced animals or
their managers, as is the case near ports. Such people would
include veterinarians, agricultural workers, companion-
animal owners, and managers and field staff who visit
different animal holdings, such as agricultural advisors.
A program of awareness for these staff, addressing the need
to report anything unusual in the animals they work with, is
essential and should provide easy access to the second line
of defense.
As an example, the Australian Department of Education,
Science and Training has nationally recognized, formally
defined units of competency that are encompassed in a
national training framework. These units of competency are
used to give primary producers, animal-health workers, and
field veterinarians nationally recognized, defined certifica-
tion in aspects of EAD recognition and initial response.
The second line of defense will be provided, in such
locations, by specialist veterinarians, who require regular
and dedicated teaching on current EAD risks to augment
their basic veterinary training in EADs.
VETERINARY GRADUATE TRAINING IN EADS
Graduating veterinarians are generally trained to a level
that allows recognition of an unusual epidemic disease and
provides an understanding of the major EADs. Although
most undergraduate programs in veterinary medicine do
not include a separate course on EADs, the knowledge
is usually presented as part of undergraduate courses
in microbiology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, and
species-specific medicine. In addition, there may be specific
modules on EADs within other courses, such as Professional
Studies. For example, the BVSc program at Charles Sturt
University in Australia includes a separate course,
Emergency Disease Management and Public Health, to be
taken in the fifth year of the program.
Private practitioners are encouraged by both state and
federal government agencies to update their knowledge on
EAD recognition regularly, by reading journal publications
and mail-outs and by attending sponsored workshops.
Thus, a private practitioner (whether recent graduate or not)
should be competent in suspecting a disease and will be
expected to contact the appropriate authorities and take
appropriate initial action.
DESIRABLE FEATURES OF SPECIALIST EAD
DIAGNOSTIC TRAINING
It is clear that no single course can effectively deliver
comprehensive training in all EADs. The authors organized
a workshop for Australian EAD professionals, which was
attended by state and federal animal health representatives
as well as by representatives from veterinary schools and
professional organizations. This section of the article
summarizes the workshop’s conclusions and recommenda-
tions for an ideal course.
Sending veterinarians to exotic disease outbreaks overseas
or to countries where ‘‘exotic’’ diseases are endemic is
regarded as invaluable training. There are cost constraints
on this, however, as well as other limitations, namely the
restricted number of diseases that can be experienced at one
time and the different clinical signs exhibited under
different environmental conditions, which may confuse
the issue. The presence of concurrent disease is perceived
as another complicating factor. Thus, it is believed to be
necessary for EAD preparedness to include high-level
training in EAD diagnosis within national boundaries.
Courses using infected live animals to demonstrate diseases
are held in countries that have secure bio-containment
facilities, including
.National Centre for FAD Laboratory, Winnipeg,
Canada
.Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Plum
Island, USA
.Animal Health, Pirbright, UK
.Australian Animal Health Laboratories, Geelong,
Australia
In the case of US, Canadian, and Australian centers, past
courses have usually run for around eight days and
included both theory and practical sessions. There are
ethical implications to using live infected animals, however,
and it must be considered whether this is necessary. Codes
of practice may require justifying the use of live animals in
the form of an improved learning outcome.
Suggested Aim, Objectives, and Learning Outcomes
of an EAD Course
Overall Aim of the Course –
To enhance the ability of field
veterinarians to rapidly and confidently recognize exotic
animal diseases.
Educational Objectives –
On completion of the course,
attendees will be able to
.Recognize the major exotic diseases of animals when
presented with an animal or groups of animals
showing the clinical signs and/or gross pathology of
one of those diseases
.Instigate the correct procedures to confirm the
diagnosis of the disease
.Undertake appropriate measures for effective initial
management of the disease
Learning Outcomes –
After completing this course, attendees
will be able to
.Describe the etiology, infectivity, epidemiology, clin-
ical signs, clinical progression, and pathology of the
major exotic and emerging animal diseases
.Discuss how this knowledge can be incorporated into
the diagnostic process for endemic diseases
256 JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC
.Collect and dispatch appropriate pathological
specimens from production species
.Describe the laboratory procedures used for the
diagnosis of exotic animal diseases
.Discuss the accuracy of the clinical signs and
laboratory tests used to diagnose EADs and the
comparable endemic diseases
.Outline appropriate methods of containment and
decontamination practices for effective initial
management of EADs
Prerequisites
Prerequisites should be clearly defined. Consultation with
EAD specialists indicates that prerequisites should include
the following.
1. Necropsy of relevant animal species and appropriate specimen
collection –
Animal-health veterinarians do not usually
have the opportunity to perform necropsies on all relevant
species in their routine work. A required prerequisite to
EAD training may involve reviewing necropsy technique
and completing a set number of necropsies in each species.
This could be achieved in part through computer simula-
tions/videos and augmented practical training. Specific
necropsy training is already provided to field officers in
some Australian states.
2. Species-specific training –
It is likely that attending veter-
inarians do not regularly encounter all species. A good
understanding of endemic diseases in all relevant domestic
species should be a prerequisite, unless it is envisaged that
EAD specialists will specialize in particular species. This
will depend on the size of a country’s EAD workforce.
Poultry diseases are particularly noted, as several diseases
endemic to many countries mimic EAD, and veterinarians
should be familiar with the clinical signs and gross
pathology of these diseases.
3. Epidemiology –
Attending veterinarians should have an
understanding of the principles of epidemiology.
Ideally, these prerequisite requirements should be tested
using an easily accessible, attractive format. This could
include tailored DVD presentations and interactive
computer quizzes, which are used extensively in both
undergraduate and post-graduate courses. Web-based tests
are a component of overall assessment in many veterinary
undergraduate courses, such as pathology and microbio-
logy, and could be adapted for the use suggested here.
Conduct of the Course
Delivery of the course material should be done in such a
way as to ensure that the learning outcomes are realized by
participants. Outcomes should be examined at the end of
the course and at regular intervals thereafter.
ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS OF USING LIVE, DELIBERATELY
INFECTED ANIMALS FOR EAD TRAINING AND
ALTERNATIVES TO THE USE OF LIVE ANIMALS
Increasing constraints on the use of animals to support
teaching and research activities in many countries has
inevitably caused the use of live animals in EAD courses to
be questioned. Notwithstanding this, one of the important
reasons for EAD training is to reduce the potential for
widespread animal and human suffering during an EAD
event. Thus, recommendations to reduce the use of live
animals in training need to be balanced against the potential
suffering that may result from a less-than-optimal response
to an EAD outbreak. Nevertheless, we obviously have a
moral obligation to maximize the use of any animal that is
used for training purposes. If the use of alternatives has a
place in providing training, it could be either to replace the
use of live animals entirely or as an adjunct to or partial
replacement for live-animal use.
A list of audiovisual materials available worldwide, includ-
ing US Department of Agriculture veterinary medical
training films and videos
2
and relevant material produced
by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research
Organisation,
3
is presented in Table 1. Many of the available
videos contain excellent material showing clear clinical
signs and post-mortem findings. In some cases, the material
may be out of date with respect to worldwide distribution of
disease and current knowledge. There is a case to be made
for revising or re-creating existing materials to increase their
appeal and topicality, using modern multimedia facilities,
and preparing versions translated into the major world
languages.
Searching for information on alternatives to animal use in
research can be difficult, and ways of simplifying the
process have been described in a review by Chilov et al.
4
Equivalence of outcomes with traditional teaching methods,
which is important for persuading teaching institutions to
adopt these alternative methods, has been the subject of two
systematic reviews,
5, 6
both of which conclude that the
apparent good performance of alternatives in the classroom
justifies their more widespread use. The following are
other sources of information on alternatives that would be
useful to any veterinary training institution contemplating
their use.
1. The Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights
a
This is a keyword-searchable database with many entries
covering animal use in research and teaching. Search results
are comprehensive; however, searches cannot be limited to
specific types of resource (i.e., it is not possible to search for
published articles only; results will include articles, books,
videos, and models).
2. European Resource Centre for Alternatives in
Higher Education
b
This group’s Web site offers a large amount of information
on alternatives and includes a section titled ‘‘Animals in
Education,’’ which provides links to numerous articles and
presentations, including a survey of the educational efficacy
of alternatives.
7
This survey collates abstracts of peer-
reviewed published articles that evaluate alternatives.
Currently it includes 11 studies demonstrating superior
educational efficacy of humane alternatives; 17 studies
demonstrating equivalent educational efficacy of humane
alternatives; two studies demonstrating inferior
educational efficacy of humane alternatives; and 13 other
relevant studies (e.g., comparisons not involving harmful
animal use).
JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC 257
Table 1: List of available worldwide alternatives to the use of live animals for EAD training
Source Title Comments
USDA Veterinary Medical
Training Resources
7
Biosecurity and the Poultry Industry
series
Shows how the different segments of the poultry
industry can protect their operations from the introduction
of diseases
African Horse Sickness This series discusses the clinical aspects/signs and lesions
of the foreign animal diseases listed.African Swine Fever/Hog Cholera
Contagious Bovine Pleuropneumonia
Ephemeral Fever
Exotic Newcastle Disease
Foot-and-Mouth Disease
Malignant Catarrhal Fever
Rinderpest
Sheep Pox/Goat Pox
Swine Vesicular Disease
Pseudorabies in Swine Describes the disease in swine and other animals with
emphasis on its signs, how it spreads, and how it affects hog
production
Task Force: Exotic Newcastle Disease Presents the story of how exotic Newcastle disease was
eradicated
Instructional packages on FAD
recognition:
These instructional sets consist of a video of clinical signs and
necropsy lesions, 2 2 slides, and a narrative.
African horsesickness
African swine fever
Contagious bovine pleuropneumonia
Lumpy skin disease, sheep pox, goat
pox
Malignant catarrhal fever
Rinderpest, Peste des petites
ruminants
Vesicular diseases
Learning and reference CD-ROMs: These interactive CD-ROMs are exercises that allow an
individual to perform a field investigation of specific exotic
diseases, from the initial phone contact through the diagnosis.
Also included is information on the industry and a library
containing chapters on the diseases of concern.
Hog cholera (Classical swine fever)
and African swine fever
Vesicular diseases of swine
Vesicular diseases of cattle
Exotic Newcastle disease and
avian influenza
Exotic Newcastle Disease and the
California Outbreak (Avian
pneumoenephalitis), DVD or VHS
video
Highlights the importance of immediately seeking laboratory
assistance to establish a diagnosis.
Refers to an outbreak of exotic Newcastle disease in California
and the key role played by fighting chickens.
Online Resources <http://
www.cfsph.iastate.edu/DiseaseInfo/>
This Web site at the Centre for Food Security and Public Health,
Iowa State University, contains fact sheets, image databases,
PowerPoint slides, and speaker notes for more than 100 exotic
and endemic diseases.
Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial
Research Organisation
(Resources Australia)
Resources
3
Foot and Mouth Disease A series of 10 programs intended to alert veterinarians and
other animal health professionals to the threat of and instruct
on the signs of exotic disease. An optional slide set showing
details of clinical and post-mortem signs is also available for
the some programs.
Bluetongue Disease
Scrapie and BSE
Exotic Diseases of Pigs
Screw Worm Fly
African Diseases
Rift Valley Fever—Hypothetical
Capripox
Poultry Diseases / Avian Influenza
and Newcastle Disease
Rabies
258 JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC
3. Norwegian School of Veterinary Sciences
c
This is a comprehensive database on alternatives. Searching
is by keyword, and results can be searched by type of
material (e.g., book, CD-ROM, reference article, etc.). The
database concentrates on books and conference proceedings
rather than on reference articles.
4. The Humane Society of the United States
d
This undated Web site features a list of studies from several
scientific journals that compare dissection and other uses
of animals with alternative teaching methods, including
students from seventh grade through undergraduate
university programs. The list includes 18 studies that
demonstrate equivalent performance on the part of students
using alternative methods and those using traditional
dissection methods; 15 studies in which students
using alternative methods outperformed those performing
dissections; and a single study that found students
who conducted dissections performing better than those
who used alternative methods.
OTHER ALTERNATIVE TRAINING METHODS
There are plans to amend the FAD course offered by the
USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to
provide a videoconferencing facility with real-time trans-
mission of images from animal and necropsy rooms at Plum
Island to four locations in the United States.
7
It may be
possible for other organizations to use a similar approach or
to incorporate some of the Plum Island material into future
EAD courses in countries outside the United States.
Another approach is to develop a bank of preserved
necropsy specimens for repeated use. Animals must first
be heavily anesthetized; preservative is then infused
intravenously just before euthanasia. There is some poten-
tial to use animals from research projects in this way to
produce preserved specimens to demonstrate gross pathol-
ogy. There are limitations to this potential, however: many
of the EADs demonstrated in current courses show little
gross pathology, because of the need to preserve the
animal’s welfare by euthanizing before major adverse
impact of the disease.
A significant body of evidence supports the use of
alternatives to the use of live animals in undergraduate
veterinary teaching of major diseases. Unfortunately, there
has not been any similar research comparing outcomes from
live animals with alternatives in the demonstration of EADs.
In undergraduate teaching of surgery and anatomy, there
has been substantial research on alternatives, much of
which demonstrates equivalent outcomes (e.g., for training
students to perform intestinal anastomoses
8
or in the use of
a hemostasis model to teach basic surgical skills).
6
Students’
attitudes to the usefulness of alternatives may become
much more positive after they have experienced them
9
or, in
other cases, may not change at all.
8
However, such
comparisons depend on the quality of the instruction that
uses live animals and alternatives. It is possible that there is
publication bias favoring alternatives because of the funding
available to investigate their efficacy, whereas there is little
or no funding to investigate the benefits of using live
animals. However, existing experiments
8, 9
appear to have
been designed and conducted to a high scientific standard,
making the latter possibility unlikely.
The different teaching methods present different opportu-
nities and problems. Live-animal demonstration provides
the opportunity for maximum sensory impact, and particu-
larly visual impact. It is likely that students’ experience may
be more memorable because of the greater empathy they
would be expected to feel for a live exhibit of a suffering
animal, as compared with the same animal displayed on a
video screen. It is also possible, however, that students may
more easily become desensitized to animal suffering when
viewing the live animal rather than just an image. Tactile
contact would not usually be possible with animals infected
with zoonotic diseases but may be important in the case of
other diseases. However, apart from repeated presentation
during the course, however, live-animal demonstrations
offer no opportunity for trainees to be reminded of
symptoms at a later date, unless alternative methods are
used; furthermore, only a narrow range of symptoms would
normally be provided, specific to the conditions under
which the animals are infected and to the animals
themselves. This would not normally include advanced
stages of the disease, because of the animal-welfare
implications of allowing animals to experience these final
stages. On the other hand, while alternatives have more
limited sensory impact at the time of presentation, there
may be a better opportunity for trainees to revisit their
audiovisual presentations at a later date, either during a
refresher course or, when appropriate, through the use of
multimedia facilities that they will almost certainly have
available at work or at home. Such opportunities could also
be presented to students who were originally trained with
live animals, but these students will be less familiar with
this method of presentation and may not have the materials
readily available. A possible method of delivery could
include both live-animal demonstrations and a follow-up
using alternative methods. If alternatives are well designed
and produced, there is the opportunity to present a range of
different manifestations of the disease in different types of
animal or under different environmental conditions.
Thus the authors conclude that a limited number of studies
comparing alternatives and live animals in veterinary
education appear to have shown that students who use
alternatives are not disadvantaged. The references cited,
however, do not pose the specific questions considered in
this course—in particular, Are alternatives adequate for
training veterinarians in EAD diagnosis?
The closest available parallel to EAD teaching is the
teaching of endemic animal diseases to undergraduate
veterinary students. In this case, the students are not
exposed to animal exhibits of the disease but are taught
through the principles of differential diagnosis, sometimes
with the aid of multimedia description of the signs of
the disease, supported by laboratory-based evidence.
This theoretical knowledge is reinforced when students
see the diseases during practical work on farms and
veterinary clinics. In Australia, the induction of disease in
live animals for the purpose of teaching veterinary under-
graduate students was phased out gradually during
the 1970s and 1980s. However, it can be argued that the
potential impact of incorrect diagnosis is greater for EADs
than for endemic disease, and opportunities for observing
JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC 259
diseases in the field, to reinforce didactic teaching, exist only
for endemic diseases.
In the absence of specific information on the benefits of
using live animals in teaching EADs, and because it is
unlikely that students will encounter EADs, the authors see
a need to conduct comparative studies to determine
whether or not effective teaching of EAD preparedness
requires the use of live animals. Such a study would require
careful planning but would include a comparison of the
learning outcomes experienced by a group of students who
participated in both lectures and live-animal experiments
with those of students who participated in both lectures and
alternatives to the use of animals (audiovisual materials,
case-based learning, etc.). Ideally, a switchback design
would be used, with two groups of students passing
through either first live-animal instruction, then alterna-
tives, or vice versa. Assessment after each instruction period
would minimize any bias. It would be prudent to combine a
comparison study with the augmentation of existing
available audiovisual aids (e.g., hiring a professional
audiovisual team to permanently record the live animals
with a view to providing alternative audiovisual materials).
Classes should be delivered by the same person(s), and
assessment of the achievement of learning objectives should
be independent. The biggest challenge for this approach
would be the testing method: if alternative rather than
live-animal testing methods are employed, then alternative
training methods may appear to yield more favorable
results than would actually be the case in the event of a
disease event.
The study could usefully include a third group that is
exposed to both live animals and alternatives, in order to
investigate whether live animals add sufficient value to be
recommended for inclusion in EAD educational programs.
In this case, an incomplete Latin square design would
probably be most appropriate, with cohorts proceeding
through two of the three ‘‘treatments.’’
FOLLOW-UP TRAINING
Veterinarians should be further trained in EAD principles
and practice through ongoing in-house training, but it is
believed to be very important to the effectiveness of their
elite diagnostic capabilities that they invest in specific
follow-up training. Such training should be considered
just as important as the initial course, which will introduce
principles that will be of value to these diagnosticians
throughout their careers. It is recommended that a formal
annual or biennial Web-based update and test be a
requirement of maintaining the ‘‘elite diagnostician’’ status.
A Web-based update on the major exotic and emerging
animal diseases, current relative risks posed, and likely
pathways of introduction, followed by an online examina-
tion, could be a cost-effective way of providing ongoing
training, as long as there is effective control of the integrity
of the examination process. Ensuring that elite diagnosti-
cians undertake an examination is essential to maintaining
confidence and capabilities at a high level. The examination
could be presented in multiple-choice format and could
provide an automatic result certificate showing the exam-
ination score and providing an acknowledgement of the
number of continuing professional development units that
the refresher course is worth to the diagnostician.
A comprehensive Foreign Animal Disease online course
10
is offered in the United States by the Foreign Animal and
Zoonotic Disease Centre, acting under the direction of the
non-profit Humanitarian Resource Institute. The course has
an online test component that encompasses 200 true/false
questions. Upon completion and online submission of the
test, individuals who attain a passing grade of 90% or above
(this requirement was implemented on August 30, 2004)
receive a certificate of completion from the Humanitarian
Resource Institute.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the financial support of the
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Australia,
for conducting this study, and the contribution of represen-
tatives from the states and territories of Australia who gave
freely of their time for this project.
NOTES
a Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights
<http://avar.org/alted/>. Accessed 12/20/07.
b European Resource Centre for Alternatives in Higher
Education <http://www.eurca.org/animal_educatio-
n.asp>. Accessed 12/20/07.
c Norwegian School of Veterinary Sciences
<http://oslovet.veths.no/fag.aspx?fag¼57>.
Accessed 12/20/07.
d The Humane Society of the United States <http://
www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_
education/comparative_studies_of_dissection_and_
other_animal_uses.html>. Accessed 12/20/07.
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AUTHOR INFORMATION
Carmel Kerwick, BVSc, MACVS (Animal Welfare), is a consultant
in animal welfare with experience as an animal welfare officer
for research and teaching institutions. Address: 6 Cyril Street,
Camp Hill, QLD 4152 Australia. E-mail: carmelk@acacia.net.au.
Joanne Meers, BVSc, DipVetPath, Phd, is Associate Professor of
Veterinary Virology in the School of Veterinary Science,
University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4067 Australia. Her
research has focused on several viruses of veterinary
importance, including viruses of both domestic and native
animal species. Her research interests include viruses of the
brushtail possum, koala retrovirus, feline immunodeficiency
virus, and Newcastle disease virus.
Clive Phillips, BSc, MA, PhD, is Professor, Chair of Animal
Welfare and Director of the Centre for Animal Welfare and
Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, University of Queensland,
St Lucia, QLD 4067 Australia. E-mail: c.phillips@uq.edu.au. His
research interests focus on the welfare of farm, companion,
and captive wild animals. Animal-welfare topics that are
investigated include malnutrition, health, housing, transport,
and reproduction, with an emphasis on farm livestock and
captive wild animals.
JVME 35(2) ß2008 AAVMC 261
