Animal health aims to achieve a perfect physical and functional development of an organism, in balance with the environment to reach its maximum productivity potential. Protect public health, prevent the entry of infectious agents causing exotic or endemic diseases of economic importance, and establish forms of control and possible eradication.

Therefore, health must be used as a tool for the common good for population, source of food, protection of the producer or industry, favoring its development and efficiency. But it should not be used as a disproportionate body of protection to favor domestic production because of the negative effects on food production, efficiency and price. There are many examples of animal diseases, but over time we have seen that neither norm are set nor production improved, allowing the development of oligopolies or monopolies that affect small producers in time and the increase of poverty in the breeder sector.

Having healthy animals’ help to feed the population, produce proteins of high nutritional value, so people are healthy and production is sustainable, respecting the environment. But having healthy animals does not always guarantee that innocuous food is offered without contaminant residues, then it is some public policies directed to this type of production, to generate confidence in the consumer.

Health should be a tool that allows trade (exchange market) that does not affect the national livestock production, the high subsidies in the agricultural sector in many countries, to the detriment of others.

The curious thing is that health in many of our countries, along with other ministerial institutions generate legal uncertainty of competition that interfere in the development of small and medium-sized livestock, investment, legal security, technological development, not to mention environmental aspects and public health where many of these rules do not reflect the reality of the country, if not extraterritorial experience and where it is used very often international agencies and consultants paid with state resources.

Other important actions for health include zoonoses, transboundary diseases, veterinary systems, antimicrobial resistance, and food safety.