title: The future of veterinary services in the Republic of South Africa.
abstract: Future developments will depend mainly on new information generated by research and on effective application of preventive medicine. In the latter case, the various diagnostic centres in South Africa will have to be developed to their full extent, leading to the drawing up of computerised disease profiles and monitoring of the incidence of scheduled diseases. Dealing with these problems will require further knowledge to be generated by research. Problems of increasing drug, insecticide and acaricide resistance and problems of virus bionomics will call for attack at the molecular, biochemical, biophysical and immunological levels. This will demand adjustment of post-graduate veterinary education and of ever closer collaboration with scientists well-versed in the basic disciplines. Despite the argument that animal production will be ousted by crop production, the former, particularly in South Africa, is bound to develop and will call for more attention to the physiology of digestion and metabolism and to diseases of metabolism of ruminants. Concern is expressed that so few young veterinarians take up research as a career, as South Africa has many veterinary problems peculiar to itself.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005544:Forecasting; D006077:Government Agencies; D013019:South Africa; D014730:Veterinary Medicine / Q000639:trends*