FECAVA Council Meeting in Belgrade • 27-29 April 2023
On 29 April, FECAVA Council met in Belgrade. It feels liberating to organize bi-annual meetings again after the coronavirus restrictions we were experiencing in the last years.
Three days before the council, FECAVA Working groups sat down to discuss the ideas and plans for future projects. The main topics were:
FECAVA EuroCongress in Lisbon in September this year and in Athens next year.
Awards and Scholarships (chaired by Wolfgang Dohne):
• IVC Evidensia Student Travel Scholarship (deadline for application by 15 May 2023),
• FECAVA Laboklin Travel Scholarship (deadline or application by 31 August 2023) and
• Didier-Noël Carlotti Award (nominations open by 31 May 2023).
The sustainability working group (chaired by Stephan Neumann) plans to survey the veterinary clinics to understand the veterinary profession’s carbon footprint better before making further steps.
The breeding and reproduction working group (chaired by Xavier Lévy) is addressing the issue of responsible breeding and searching for solutions to give priority to health in front of the breed standards.
The Animal Welfare and Behaviour working group’s primary focus is supporting European initiatives for healthier breed standards of the brachycephalic breeds. Ann Criel chairs the group and as a guest Emma Milne attended the meeting and gave the working group invaluable support.
This time, the Mental Health and Well-being working group focused on positive examples of helplines to support veterinarians in crisis in Finland and Switzerland.
The policy, financial, and marketing committees tailor the internal organization of the FECAVA and we can expect many changes soon.
The council meeting started with a welcome by the FECAVA president Denis Novak to participants with the emphasis on the new representatives and guests from collaborating organizations FVE (Thierry Chambon), UEVP (Volker Moser), and WSAVA (Felisbina Queiroga) and ISFM (Nathalie Dowgray).
The FECAVA board presented activities and additional projects in the pipeline:
• Denis Novak collaborates with internal medicine specialists and the industry on the endocrinology project.
• Wolfgang Dohne talked about the initiative to organize the congress for the Ukrainian veterinarians (members of USAVA), a congress in Germany, and later also presented the current implementation of veterinary telemedicine in Europe, focusing on client-patient relationships.
• Stephan Neumann is preparing new interactive factsheets on hereditary diseases.
• Ann Criel now represents FECAVA and FVE at the European platform for animal welfare, where she brings her expertise in setting up positions to improve European legislation
• Danny Holmes iniciated colaboration with Petcare Innovation Europe and will give out he reward in health sector in the name of FECAVA at the next summit.
FIP was another topic discussed during the Council. Since some antiviral treatments (such as remdesivir) proved lifesaving for FIP in cats, a demand for the legalization of remdesivir for veterinary use is present across Europe. FVE/FECAVA sent a letter to the Commission. Demetris Epaminondas from Cyprus raised the concern due to the increased number of cases of FIP in Cyprus in recent months and possible solutions for the legal import of the treatment to Cyprus.
Following the secret vote issued in the previous FECAVA council meeting in Marseille last December, about Russia and Belarus suspension, Vladen Ushakov, the president of USAVA, explained how disappointed they were with the decision.
Julija Abram, from Estonia, showed the difficulties they are facing in filling the veterinary prescription as proposed by their authorities.
AVEPA decided to redraw its membership following lengthy discussions with the FECAVA board about the payments per member.
All the detailed results of the discussions will be shared on FECAVA Digital Channels in the following months.
Next meeting of the FECAVA Council will take place during the joint FECAVA/WSAVA Congress in September in Lisbon.
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