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Tufts University - Index

Tufts University - Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine Beyond Boundaries - Index

With our colleagues in Nepal, we have implemented a
pragmatic approach to deal with one of the highest per-capita
rates of human rabies deaths worldwide. Tufts students have
developed an education campaign about the country’s large
population of unvaccinated dogs, and are collecting further
demographic and socioeconomic data to target their efforts. At
the same time, Tufts surgeons have conducted student training
in dog sterilization, and are helping to incorporate this practice
into the veterinary curriculum at Tribhuvan University.
Through the Massachusetts Oral Rabies Vaccination Project,
we have successfully worked with federal and local
governments and boards of health to vaccinate raccoons and
reduce the number of wildlife rabies cases on Cape Cod.
The team’s effort to eliminate rabies from the Cape has
served as a model for other states using oral vaccination for
wildlife rabies control.
The Cummings School’s new company,
Azuluna® Brands, helps preserve New
England’s farming heritage with a fresh
approach to food production. By incorporating
innovative agricultural management practices,
it adds high-value products to local farms to
improve their overall profitability. At the same
time, it reflects a commitment to sustainability
and animal welfare by allowing animals to
roam and feed naturally, and it has worked
to reintroduce breeds with appealing traits
that have fallen out of favor with commercial
production.
D R . J O N AT H A N E P S T E I N
D V M , M P H 0
Certificate in International Veterinary Medicine
Senior Research Scientist, The Consortium for
Conservation Medicine, New York, NY
Recent devastating outbreaks of diseases like SARS
and avian influenza have alerted the public to the
increasing dangers of emerging infectious diseases—and
to the need to understand how they are transmitted. In
2004, Dr. Epstein was part of an international team of
scientists that identified Chinese horseshoe bats as the
natural wildlife reservoir for SARS coronavirus in China.
Dr. Epstein’s training at Tufts’ Cummings School of
Veterinary Medicine prepared him well for his current
work. “Both the combined DVM/MPH program and the
international veterinary medicine certificate program at
Tufts played a pivotal role in my career development,
by allowing me to explore the links between human and
animal health on a global scale,” he says.
“The work my colleagues and I are doing is giving us a
better understanding of the complex process of zoonotic
disease emergence, and ultimately, we hope to be able
to predict and prevent future outbreaks.”