Community animal health services for improving household wealth and health status of low-income farmers

Livestock are central to the household economy for some communities in low-income and middle-income countries. The availability of basic veterinary services could contribute to the wealth and health of households by preventing animal illness or death. In most low-income countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the state provided free veterinary services during the years in which countries were colonized, and for some time after their independence. However, since the 1960s privately (or self) employed veterinarians are slowly replacing government veterinary services. Privatized veterinary services, modelled on European or North American systems, have had mixed success in that they seem to have worked well in urban areas, but not in remote arid and semi-arid areas of the world, where livestock herding is very extensive and people do not have money to pay for the services. While the provision of community animal health services seems common sense, very no well-designed randomized controlled trials nor any controlled before-and-after studies have evaluated its impact. Such studies are needed to substantiate the positive results reported it several observational studies.