New BVA President Declares Disease Resilience a 'Major Focus'

The British Veterinary Association's new president has named disease resilience as a "major focus" of the incoming presidential term, placing animal health preparedness at the top of the association's agenda for the year ahead.

The announcement, reported by Vet Times, marks the formal handover of leadership at the UK's main veterinary membership body, which represents thousands of veterinarians across companion-animal, farm-animal and public-health practice.

What changes under the new presidency?

The president's stated priority signals where the association will direct its policy and advocacy work: strengthening the ability of animal populations — and the veterinary systems that serve them — to withstand disease pressure rather than simply respond to outbreaks after they occur.

For practicing veterinarians, that framing typically translates into engagement on:

• Biosecurity and preventive medicine standards
• Surveillance and early-detection capability -Veterinary capacity to respond to endemic and emerging disease
• Cross-sector coordination between companion-animal, livestock and public-health workstreams

The presidency runs on the association's standard one-year cycle, meaning the disease-resilience agenda will define the BVA's public positions over the coming twelve months.

Why resilience, and why now?

Disease resilience has moved steadily up the veterinary policy agenda in the UK, where livestock practitioners continue to manage endemic production diseases while government and industry weigh preparedness for emerging threats. A resilience-led approach shifts attention from outbreak response toward prevention, monitoring and system-level preparedness — territory that directly touches day-to-day practice decisions on vaccination protocols, biosecurity advice and herd-health planning.

The companion-animal side faces parallel pressures, with practices balancing preventive care delivery against workforce constraints. Public-health implications run through both: zoonotic disease surveillance depends heavily on frontline veterinary reporting.

The road ahead

How far the new president can convert a stated "major focus" into concrete policy positions will become clear as the association sets out its work programme for the term.