Responsibility and integrity
At Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health we believe our responsibilities to wider society extend beyond our primary goals as a business. We are committed to raising standards and to adding value wherever we can — in the food chain, for the animals which benefit from our products and, on a broader level, to the environment and wider society as a whole. We strive to conduct our business in such a way as to maximize its social, environmental and economic benefits and encourage our employees to apply these fundamental principles in all aspects of their professional lives.
Intervet/Schering-Plough Animal Health is involved in a number of areas where we believe we can contribute to improving people’s lives and the world we live in. We focus on areas in which our scientific expertise, products and people can really make a difference to everyday lives and to raising professional standards.
Brazil
A recent example is our commitment to the local community around our site in Fortaleza, Brazil, where we have been running a campaign called Vidro Vira Vida (‘Glass becomes Life’). The aim of the initiative is to raise environmental awareness in the local community and provide funds to local healthcare institutions. Employees from the Fortaleza site are working in their spare time to make the campaign a success.
Malawi
In Malawi, this year we will be supporting the SHMPA program, an initiative designed to help subsidence dairy farmers increase milk production, improve the health of their animals and improve milk quality.
Tanzania
Our commitment to the ‘Afya Serengeti’ project, which means ‘health of Serengeti’ in Swahili, continues unabated. Each year we donate 200,000 doses of rabies vaccine to the project to support the ongoing preventative campaign to combat rabies among the domestic dog population in the Serengeti. This, in turn, has reaped tremendous benefits, both for humans by reducing the incidence of rabid dog bites and for wildlife. Latest research reveals the resurgence of the African wild dog population – a species that was close to extinction – within the
Serengeti National Park.
UK
In the UK, we have been donating free vaccines to provide protection to assistance dogs used by deaf, blind and disabled people. A simple, but effective service to charities and people in need.
USA
Across the USA, the weakened economy, high fuel and feed costs, coupled with government bans on horse slaughter, have escalated the need for unwanted horse care. No organized national system exists to account for, fund or provide care. Working with the American Association of Equine Practitioners, we have created the Unwanted Horse Veterinary Relief Campaign (UHVRC), a nonprofit program. Through the UHVRC, we will donate equine vaccines to qualifying equine rescue and retirement facilities to provide healthcare to rehabilitate, revitalize and re-home America’s unwanted horses.
Dieter Lütticken Award
Our annual Dieter Lütticken Award honors researchers who have contributed significantly to reducing animal use in research and in testing the safety, quality and efficacy of veterinary medicines. The latest award went to a team that developed an in vitro potency test for the routine quality control of inactivated Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccines.
