OIE Laboratory Sustainability – Development of Economic Indicators for International Animal Health
Improving the economic sustainability of global veterinary labs
Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases develops economic indicators for the international animal health system
Veterinary labs around the world work every day to keep animal populations safe from infectious livestock diseases. One Texas A&M AgriLife group, in partnership with the World Organisation for Animal Health, OIE, has been working to improve the economic sustainability of those labs.
The Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases, a unit of Texas A&M AgriLife, has been part of the larger OIE Sustainable Laboratories Initiative. The overall initiative seeks to help OIE member countries improve the sustainability of their laboratory biosafety and biosecurity management programs and reduce the risk of release of dangerous pathogens.
The Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases’ portion of the project has been working on developing a set of indicators for economic sustainability of veterinary labs around the world, especially in lower-resource settings.
“It’s basically an effort to expand what the World Organisation for Animal Health is doing for laboratory sustainability to further develop the economic component,” said Jessica Cargill, Institute for Infectious Animal Diseases assistant director for evaluation and program development.
Cargill explained that having economic indicators of sustainability helps labs measure their progress and can help them secure investments to continue their work.
“Part of sustainability is being economically sustainable,” she said.
