When you hear the name Intervet, you could be forgiven for thinking that this company only produces high quality products to serve the animal health market. Delve a bit deeper and you also find a company that is wholeheartedly committed to supporting its community through a number of commendable projects both in the UK and abroad.

An increasingly important part of Intervet’s business philosophy, these initiatives reach out to people and animals as close as our next door neighbours and as far away as Africa.  “We are fully committed to setting up initiatives that can contribute to the local community and supporting worthwhile campaigns such as Forging the Link and the ‘Afya Serengeti’ project,” comments Jim Hungerford, general manager of Intervet UK.

“As a company we are fully committed to our corporate social responsibility initiatives, ” comments Jim Hungerford, general manager of Intervet UK.  “We are keen to do all we can to actively contribute both time and effort to local initiatives to enrich the lives of both the community and our workforce alike.  For several years we have supported the Forging the Link programme , (which aims to address the link between animal abuse, child abuse and domestic violence) as well as supporting the Afya Serengeti program, which provides rabies vaccine to reduce the thousands of unnecessary rabies deaths on Africa.  I am proud that we are now further extending our community initiatives.”

The diversity of the projects Intervet supports are wide and varied, but converge with a common, underlying theme – quite simply, the health and welfare of animals. From working together with other agencies to help eradicate animal abuse, child abuse and domestic violence, to taking a closer look at the plight of human and animal suffering from rabies in the Serengeti, Intervet works to achieve its ultimate aim. The driving force behind these projects is the commitment of staff who know that they are making a difference. 

Forging the Link
Child abuse, animal abuse and domestic violence is still considered amongst some to be a taboo subject, but this is an area where Intervet has been instrumental in helping to promote the awareness of the links in order to help safeguard the welfare of children, animals and vulnerable adults. The ‘Link’ involved is the tragic association between non-accidental injury of animals too frequently observed by veterinary surgeons; and abuse of children or others in the home. The initiative aims to break this cycle by forging links between the different agencies involved in abuse prevention. The continued development of the company’s Forging the Link initiative is the result of years of hard work and loyalty to supporting an area of human and animal intervention, in a bid to save lives in the process.

During this time significant milestones have been achieved including the introduction of a ground-breaking national working party within the animal and human health sectors. This pioneering group was set up to bring the subject of child abuse, animal abuse and domestic violence to the fore. The Links Group consists of the RSPCA, NSPCC, Women’s Aid and other leading authorities, including Intervet, to raise awareness of the connection of violence and helping to make a difference.

Educating our own profession about the link is paramount and Intervet has been spearheading a campaign amongst veterinary student to raise awareness of the problem. The company has been running a series of enlightening seminars at UK veterinary schools to help educate students in the identification of non-accidental injury cases in practice. The programme is designed to highlight the link between abuse of animals and humans and give students guidance about what to do if faced with a case in practice.

And, with Intervet’s help, there have been a couple of significant breakthroughs in terms of support and advice. First and foremost, the RCVS Guide to Professional Conduct now contains a section on ‘animal abuse, child abuse and domestic violence’. Secondly, a booklet, published by the NSPCC has been produced in conjunction with all members of The Links Group called ‘Understanding the links, child abuse, animal abuse and family violence – information for professionals’.

The ‘Afya Serengeti’ project
Further afield, another worthwhile initiative championed by the company is the ‘Afya Serengeti’ project which is working towards controlling the incidence of animal and human rabies in north-western Tanzania by introducing widespread canine vaccination. The company is donating one dose of its Nobivac® Rabies vaccine to this worthwhile project for every dose that is used by veterinary practices across the UK. This will help to help combat rabies, which has been a major burden for humans and also a major factor in the decline of highly-endangered wildlife such as the African wild dog population. Early results from the initiative suggest that hundreds of lives have already been spared this horrendous disease.

Intervet Connect
Closer to home, tomorrow’s vets are a key focus for the company and to help assist students during their college years, Intervet has been running an educational and support service called Intervet Connect since 1992. The initiative can provide educational material to students upon request and it can also arrange for one of the company’s veterinary surgeons to make a presentation on a range of clinical topics from endocrinology or parasitology to infectious diseases or farm management.

In addition, the company operates the Intervet Connect Bursary Award which provides financial assistance for veterinary students wishing to undertake worthwhile research over the summer break, both in the UK and abroad. The award enables students to gain skills that will be directly transferable to those needed in their future careers and experience veterinary medicine in new and sometimes challenging environments.  Please click here for more information. 

Dieter Lϋtticken Award
A key area of the company’s strength is research & development and Intervet is committed to supporting the long-term goal of the 3R’s-concept – reducing, refining or replacing the use of animals in  research, education and testing. To specifically support this objective in the development and production of veterinary medicines, the company offers the Dieter Lϋtticken Award.

The Award, named after the committed researcher who guided and shaped Intervet’s R&D for more than a quarter of a century, is open to scientists or public institutions that have delivered excellent contributions to the 3R-concept.  With a prize fund of €20,000 (approximately £14,000), the Award aims to encourage research into the use of in-vitro models used in R&D, to replace animal testing for licensing purposes and avoid the use of animals in efficacy, safety and quality testing in the production of biological and pharmaceutical products for animals. Intervet would like to see as broad a scope of applications as possible and entries can include residue testing, new toxicological methods, challenge test replacements or epidemiological studies focusing on the correlation of field data and protection of animals by vaccination, new epitope identification, genomics or proteomics and alternatives to production methods that use animal by-products or animals.

Intervet welcomes submissions from all scientists and life-science research institutions, excluding commercial organisations.   Please click here for more information.