Animal health building construction poised to begin at WSU
Date:
Tuesday, June 15, 2010 PULLMAN - Construction begins this month on a 62,000 square-foot building to house the headquarters and major research labs for WSU’s School for Global Animal Health. A ground-breaking ceremony is planned for June 25 at the site southeast of the WSU Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital off Grimes Way.
“We want a place that the public can walk into and share the mission of the school,” said WSU professor Guy Palmer, director of the School for Global Animal Health. Established in 2008, the School for Global Animal Health focuses on the immense and far-reaching problems caused by infectious diseases, especially those that work at the human-animal interface.
Transmitting diseases to humans
Roughly 70 percent of human infectious diseases are transmitted from animals, Palmer said, but even animal-to-animal infectious diseases can have devastating human impacts. In developing countries, he said, families can thrive with a few cows or goats, but the loss of even one animal can mean economic ruin.
Animal disease problems can quickly impact human health and opportunity, agreed Solomon Ramabu, a veterinarian from Botswana. Ramabu, who is currently completing his Ph.D. at WSU, said that the tick-borne diseases he studies directly affect animal health and productivity, which in turn diminishes the economic security of small farmers and limits their ability to pay for other goods, including schooling and medicines for their children.
Ramabu will continue to collaborate with the school after he returns to his permanent appointment at the University of Botswana, thus continuing to expand the school’s international network of scientists. According to Palmer, a major strength of the school is the strong ties WSU faculty members have forged with researchers around the world and across the country.
Source:
WSU Today 
