Topic: 2024-Spread of Animal Viruses
Country: Mexico
Delegate Name: Dattasai Bobba
Committee: ECOSOC
Topic: The Spread of Animal Viruses
Country: Mexico
School: Portage Central High School
Animal Viruses are defined as viruses that affect animals. In the context of Mexico, prominent animal viruses include the avian influenza, rabies, and vector borne diseases such as malaria and dengue. Most of these viruses are relatively small in their impact, but the recent avian influenza (or bird flu) outbreak and the lives it’s taken has caused concern to increase. Birds infected with the bird flu are also at risk of flying to nearby countries (notably the US) and transmitting the disease to citizens there, as has already happened. The disease has spread to the states of Puebla, Tiaxcala, Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Aguascalientes. The risk to the general public is considered to be low, but the impact of the bird flu on poultry production has prompted the Mexican government to depopulate millions of birds and vaccinate millions more.
Mexico has joined the North American Plan for Animal and Pandemic Influenza treaty alongside Canada and the United states in an effort to prepare for potential outbreaks of animal influenza among the three member countries. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN has also been involved in keeping track of the recent bird flu outbreak in Mexico. The World Health Organization has also been very involved in recording and responding to this same pandemic. WHO also validated Mexico as the first country to eliminate rabies mediated by dogs.
Mexico passed the Federal Animal Health law in 2007, which laid the groundwork for diagnosing, researching, and treating animal viruses. In the 1900s, Mexico worked jointly with the US to eradicate foot and mouth disease, which primarily affected livestock and thereby altered the trade relationship between the two countries as preventing these infected livestock from crossing the border would have cost billions of dollars. Mexico has established Norma Oficial laws that control the standards in response to these diseases as well.
The best course of action for Mexico to deal with the spread of animal viruses would be to continue what it has done in the past: cooperate with other countries. Mexico should alert other nations when it finds cases of animal viruses within its border, then work to try and isolate those cases and keep them from spreading across the country and over national borders. After containing a virus, it would be most prudent to enlist other countries and organizations like WHO to research the virus and try to develop a vaccine or other effective treatment for it.
Works Cited
California Department of Food and Agriculture. “Avian Influenza En Español.” CDFA, www.cdfa.ca.gov/ahfss/animal_health/avian_influenza-hpai_updates.html#:~:text=The%20outbreak%20has%20spread%20to,the%20beginning%20of%20the%20outbreak. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
Clifford, John R., et al. “North American Plan For Animal and Pandemic Influenza.”
“Foot-and-Mouth Disease and a Collaborative Response from the U.S. and Mexico.” Foot-and-Mouth Disease and a Collaborative Response from the U.S. and Mexico | National Agricultural Library, www.nal.usda.gov/collections/stories/foot-and-mouth-disease. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
“Mexico.” Animal Law Legal Center, www.animallaw.info/intro/mexico#:~:text=The%20Federal%20Law%20of%20Animal%20Health%20(2007).,to%20livestock%2C%20among%20other%20things. Accessed 24 Nov. 2024.
Puebla-Rodríguez, Paola, et al. “Rabies Virus in White-Nosed Coatis (Nasua Narica) in Mexico: What Do We Know so Far?” Frontiers in Veterinary Science, vol. 10, 9 May 2023, doi:10.3389/fvets.2023.1090222.
