Havana, May 14 (RHC)-- The preventive and control work carried out by the workers of the Veterinary Medicine System makes it possible for Cuba to be free of 75 percent of the diseases registered by the World Organization for Animal Health.

“Among them we find the foot-and-mouth disease, the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (known as “mad cow disease”) and the avian flu affecting Latin America and the Caribbean, all of them highly contagious and of great incidence, but none present on the island,” asserted Ernesto Mendoza, director of Analysis and Biostatistics of the Veterinary Medicine Institute.

This is an expression of the priority given by the State to the Animal Health System, respect for international norms, and constant perfecting of its veterinary system, which the Agriculture Ministry is immersed on, the specialist told ACN.

He pointed out that since the 1970s there’s no presence of equine infectious encephalomyelitis on the island, or the so-called Newcastle Disease (which attacks birds), thanks to rigorous prevention and control programs.

In the recent 2nd International Conference on Animal Health Surveillance, held at Havana’s Convention Center, Cuba presented a group of papers by researchers of the National Center of Agriculture and Livestock Health and the Veterinary Medicine Institute.

Cuba has a biological-pharmaceutical industry capable of producing most of the medicaments it needs in order to take care of all cattle species.