70 years ago this very day, the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Human Rights. It assumes that all people have the same fundamental rights - regardless of their nationality, their ethnic group or their religion. Although the Human Rights are recognised by most states in principle, compliance with the declaration is still not a matter of course in many countries. This...

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Food safety is an issue of growing significance in our globalized world. In order to reduce costs, the food industry increasingly relies on raw materials produced in Africa or Southeast Asia. In developing countries, however, food controls are often unreliable or completely lacking.

At the Vetmeduni Vienna, the working group "Global Food...

Today is the International Day for Tolerance, launched in 1995 by UNESCO. Tolerance allows a decent coexistence of different cultures and religions by allowing other opinions, actions and conventions.

Veterinarians without Borders believe that the ancient knowledge and traditions of indigenous peoples are a very valuable good. Therefore, we collect and document traditional...

Vétérinaires sans Frontières Suisse (VSF-Suisse) is an associated organisation of Veterinarians without Borders Austria. The organisation supports the most vulnerable populations in the Horn of Africa and West Africa whose livelihoods and survival depend on livestock farming.

As the current Executive Director will retire,...

November 10th is World Science Day. This day is to remind us of the responsibility that researchers all over the world bear for humanity and the environment. Although it is a human right to benefit from scientific advancements, that right can hardly be claimed, especially in developing countries. Concerning research matters, people in these countries are mostly dependent on foreign...

Today is World Food Day. For an incredible total of 800 million people, sufficient food and clean drinking water are still not a matter of course. At the same time, the quality of food is often poor, especially in developing countries.

In Tanzania, for example, many women are HIV-positive and have to feed their babies with milk powder. However, the quality of the milk powder is...

Milk is susceptible to various kinds of germs, which can be transferred to humans through food and cause infectious diseases. In Austria, strict hygiene measures are taken in each production step, so that dangerous germs do not get into food. Before milking, the udder of the animals is cleaned carefully. Necessary drinking water is available in sufficient quantities. Farmers, dairies and...

In his doctoral thesis at the Vetmeduni Vienna, our Tanzanian employee John Laffa examined which plants the Maasai use to smoke-treat their calabashes. Calabashes serve as vessels to store the milk of the Maasai's cattle.

The trees and shrubs used are also important medicinal plants for the Maasai. They have a wide range of healing properties, including analgesic,...

John Laffa lives in Tanzania and has been a competent employee of Veterinarians without Borders for years. The graduate expert in agriculture, livestock and animal breeding is enroled for a doctorate course in veterinary medicine at the Vetmeduni Vienna (VMU). At the Institute of Milk Hygiene at the VMU he now wrote his doctoral thesis on indigenous Maasai milk hygiene and...