UC Davis Vet Med Launches New Ask Me Anything Series
You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers! At least to many of your burning animal or veterinary questions. UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine has launched a new Instagram “Ask Me Anything” series and we’ll be covering a variety of topics. Naturally, the series has devoted its initial offerings to all things COVID-19.
In this week’s episode (now available on YouTube), One Health Institute's Dr. Christine Kreuder Johnson answers “What is veterinary medicine's role at the forefront of #COVID19?”
As Professor of Epidemiology and Ecosystem Health, Johnson addressed questions like:
What could have happened to prevent this zoonotic disease?
Why are veterinarians relevant to this pandemic?
What can be done to prevent this from happening in the future?
According to Johnson, emerging infectious diseases may be hard to prevent in the future. We’re learning a lot about pandemic preparedness and making sure every country has what it needs to respond appropriately, she said. Collaboration and cooperation across boundaries are important to ensure that preparedness for the whole world.
As far as the importance of veterinarians in this pandemic, Johnson pointed out that they are working on everything from understanding the epidemiology and pathology of COVID-19 to developing treatments and vaccines for this new disease. Veterinarians are also well-suited to work on interdisciplinary teams and modeling that can help public health professionals know what to expect in this pandemic.
Johnson emphasized that veterinarians are on the forefront of early recognition and disease prevention for animal diseases that infect humans. This has already been illustrated in veterinarians’ role in caring for livestock and preventing the types of disease that can be transmitted from livestock to humans.
View the video to learn more.
Last week’s AMA featured Drs. Jane Sykes and Brian Bird. They discussed pets, wildlife and COVID-19.
Stay tuned for next week when Dr. Liz Stelow, one of our expert animal behaviorists, tackles the topic of how your pet’s behavior may be impacted by shelter-in-place policies.