Management of Animals in Disasters

Dr. Subhash Verma is currently a Professor of Veterinary Microbiology and Coordinator of Veterinary Emergency Response Unit (VERU-North Zone) in the Veterinary College at Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India. He has more than 25 years of professional experience working in various positions. He is also an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Veterinary Science, Veterinary Infectious Diseases. He has earlier served as Head of Department of Fisheries for more than five years. As Coordinator of the VERU, his team is responsible for imparting trainings on management and welfare of animals during emergencies to veterinarians, paravets, and other stakeholders. Dr Verma had earned his Master in Immunopharmacology with distinction from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow under British Chevening Scholarship in the year 2003. He got an Overseas Research Scholarship for Ph. D in Immunogenetics from the University of Glasgow and later pursued his Postdoctoral research in Wellcome Centre of MolecularParasitiology until 2008. He is an Associate Fellow of National Academy of Veterinary Sciences, India. His scientific contributions include underpinning the mechanism of antibody diversity in cattle, pioneer work on functional assessment and mapping of cattle activation induced cytidine deaminase, characterization of virulence determinants and development of i-ELISA for P. multocida, and development and characterization of AprV2 nanovaccine against Footrot. He had published more than 80 high quality research papers and written a book, 4 chapters and 3 manuals, deposited more than 40 sequences to GenBank, contributed towards sequencing of 2 viral genomes and submitted about 35 unique microbes to National Centre for Veterinary Type Culture Collection.

Mr. Hansen Thambi Prem works with the FAO Emergency Management Centre for Animal Health (EMC-AH) as the Sub-Regional Assessment Lead for South Asia. He has been working in the humanitarian sector since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.He is specialized in community development, participatory approaches and international humanitarian standards, such as Sphere Minimum Standards, and Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards (LEGS). Before joining FAO, Hansen worked as a Project Manager for World Animal Protection (2011 to 2020) where he was instrumental in engaging with veterinary universities and disaster management authorities to establish and strengthen the Veterinary Emergency Response Units (VERUs) in India (North-Himachal Pradesh, South-Tamil Nadu, East-Assam, West-Gujarat, and Central-Madhya Pradesh). He also regularly trains humanitarian professionals, and government officials, including paramilitary forces such as National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) battalions on the management of animals in emergencies through simulation exercises and capacity building initiatives.