VN November 2021

Vetnuus | November 2021 2 The collaboration between SAVA, the SAVC, DALRRD, DoH, NCID and the RAG for the successful Rabies Awareness Campaign has highlighted the importance of the One Health approach, which is the theme of our November VetNews edition. We had hoped that veterinarians would have been able to play a more active role in the fight against Covid-19, particularly initially in the Epidemiological and One Health fields, as discussed in the lead-up to our meeting with the Minister of Agriculture in January. Unfortunately, our proposed Ministerial Veterinary Advisory Committee (MVAC,) which would very much have a One Health focus, has gotten stuck in the DALRRD awaiting its Terms of Reference approval. Some of us had also suggested that vets could assist with human vaccinations to increase the rate of Covid-19 vaccine roll-out; however, this was met with concerns about the scope of practice. Interestingly, in some of our first world IVOC partner member countries, vets were authorized to assist in the Covid-19 vaccination of humans. The good news on the One Health front is that SAVA President-Elect Col Dr Paul van der Merwe has been invited to serve as an expert consultant for the Strategic Coordination to Strengthen One Health and Veterinary Programs for Global Health Engagement in Africa Project. This mouthful of a project forms part of Ecohealth but is funded by the US Defence Department. October was a busy meeting month with our SAVA Board of Director's, AGM and Federal Council Meetings on one weekend. The AGM was probably the most tumultuous in our 101-year history. As discussed previously, the recent resignation of 4 more SAVC councillors continues to cause concern within the profession. We need to respect that the SAVC is an independent statutory body and that it is not our mandate to become involved in internal Council matters. We do, however, have a responsibility to act in the interests of our members, who make up the bulk of the registrees. I had engaged with the SAVC President and Registrar to offer our support and request that the SAVC communicate with the registrees regarding the situation in the interests of transparency while maintaining the necessary confidentiality of certain Council information. I also approached all the resigned SAVC Councillors, that are resident in South Africa, to appreciate their concerns and discussed the matter with past SAVC Presidents to receive their input. The run-up to the AGM saw the tabling of a motion related to the recent resignation of the 4 SAVC Councilors and the resignation last year of the long-serving SAVC Registrar and a senior SAVC Councilor and ExCo member. The SAVA leadership had concerns about the legality of some parts of the motion and the sensitive content of some of the supporting documents and arranged to meet with the proposer thereof to discuss possible amendments to the motion. However, we could not meet with the proposer of the motion before the deadline of 21 days before the AGM. As the Motion was constituted correctly, we were duty-bound by our MOI and the Companies Act to distributing it to our members. What followed was a deluge of emails with SAVA being attacked from all sides. From one side, we were lambasted for not releasing the allegations to our members sooner, even though our SAVA Representative on the SAVC and I had almost suffered legal consequences for sharing some of the information and providing input to the SAVC last year. From the other side, we were severely criticized by the SAVC and other role players in the veterinary space for SAVA, allowing this motion to be distributed. Many thought that, as it went out through SAVA channels, it automatically represented SAVA's opinion. When we explained our independence from the motion and some of the problematic areas thereof, we were then accused of bias and attempting to steer the vote against the motion. What we were actually trying to do was properly inform our members and provide balance while adhering to our fiduciary duty. We in no way took sides in this matter. Another hiccup was the unprecedented interest of the normally apathetic registrees to vote on this motion. Many non-SAVA members wanted to participate, and many SAVA members paid up outstanding fees to attend the AGM and vote. This led to multiple proxies being assigned to a few attendees. As our MOI only allows for a maximum of 3 proxies per delegate at the AGM, we then had to institute a digital voting process. This led to the unfortunate situation of most of the voting taking place prior to the tabling of From the President Greetings Colleagues, Leon de Bruyn Thankfully, South Africa's Covid-19 human vaccination levels have increased dramatically, new cases have declined, and we are down to Level 1 lockdown. The Covid-19 Pandemic has highlighted how zoonosis can significantly impact the health and welfare of people and animals. In September, we focused on Rabies, another zoonosis that substantially affects human and animal health. We strive to attain the WHO, WMA and WVA goal of zero human deaths from canine mediated rabies in the world by 2030. We are happy to announce that Dr Didi Claassen has recently been appointed to represent SAVA on the Rabies Advisory Group (RAG).