Utrecht University (UU) / GD Animal Health (GD)

The Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University is the centre of expertise and point of reference for veterinary issues for the entire country. The activities include providing primary health and welfare care for a variety of types of animals, monitoring food safety and the prevention of zoonoses. Fundamental and strategic research of the Faculty focusses on the health, disease and welfare of animals and on related public and environmental health aspects. The Faculty is considered one of the leading veterinary medicine faculties in Europe and is ranked in the top ten world-wide.

GD Animal Health is a leading organisation in animal health and animal production located in Deventer, the Netherlands. GD supports industrial customers, governments, veterinarians and farmers by providing animal health programmes and laboratory diagnostic services. Furthermore, GD is commissioned to monitor animal health by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Producer organisations and interbranch organisations.  For many years, GD offers voluntary control and eradication programmes for e.g. BVDV.

Role in the project

• Is responsible for WP5: General coordination and management of STOC free,
• supports the development of the conceptual model (WP1),
• will develop a data collection tool that enables standardized collection of data from control programmes (WP2)
• carries out a case study for the Netherlands and possibly other countries (WP3)
• explores possibilities to apply the developed framework to additional endemic diseases such as BHV1 (WP3)
• collaborate in the initiatives that will be organised to disseminate the project results (WP4)