Under the auspices of the rector of the University of Baghdad, Prof. Dr. Munir Hamid al-Saadi and under direct supervision of the dean of the college of veterinary medicine, Prof. Dr. Hamid Ali Kazem, an awareness scientific symposium was held entitled ” Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) from the perspective of one health”, in cooperation with FAO and in the presence of the Deputy Minister of agriculture for technical affairs Dr. Mithaq Abdul Hussein, the assistant rector for administrative affairs at the University of Baghdad, Assist. Prof. Dr. Sarmad Fouad Jaber, the Captain of the Veterinarians Dr. Samira Abdul Latif as well as a number of members of the ministry of health and environment and veterinarians from the departments of the ministry of agriculture and a large gathering of faculty members and students.
The symposium included delivering a number of lectures on the causes behind the fever such as several distinct families of viruses, ways of its transmission that affect multiple organ systems in the body and may be accompanied by hemorrhage or bleeding. The professors dealt with the measures taken by the ministry of health for combating this disease, how to diagnose viruses at the ministry’s laboratories and methods used to prevent infection, in addition to the procedures of the Veterinary Directorate to control Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF) in Iraq. The lecturers concluded with a number of recommendations, the most important of which are to stay away from indiscriminate slaughter, prevent livestock raising near residential homes, combat ticks which are the infectious agents.
