A beloved black Labrador helped Professor Karla Georges understand that veterinary medicine was never only about animals.
As a child living in Dominica, Georges assumed the family dog would accompany them when they moved to Trinidad. Her mother explained that the Labrador would have to spend six months in quarantine, so he remained behind. Years later, while studying veterinary medicine, the understanding clicked: the regulation was not simply about controlling an animal. It was designed to protect an entire population from rabies.
“That was when it came together for me,”she recalls. “These regulations are in place to protect human health. That is part of public health and part of the role of the veterinarian. But it also highlighted just how connected all species are—and we are increasingly just learning to what degree.”
Today, Professor Georges has spent more than two decades studying the connections between animals, people, and the environment. A veterinary epidemiologist and public health scientist, she has served as Director of The University of the West Indies’ School of Veterinary Medicine at St Augustine since 2018. Her work spans tick and vector-borne diseases, food safety, antimicrobial resistance, disaster response, and the increasingly urgent field known as One Health.
One Health is a collaborative approach built on a simple reality: the wellbeing of people, animals and the environment cannot be separated. It brings together expertise from medicine, veterinary science and environmental research to prevent disease outbreaks, strengthen food safety, confront antimicrobial resistance, and respond to pressures such as climate change.
Rabies offers a clear local example. In Trinidad, the disease is transmitted by bats and can affect livestock. Human health authorities vaccinate people, agricultural authorities vaccinate animals, and cases are reported through the Anti-Rabies Unit. A One Health system connects those moving parts, allowing agencies to respond when an animal is bitten or a person is exposed.
“It is basically trying to work together instead of working in separate boxes,” Georges says.
The same principle applies to leptospirosis, which becomes more dangerous when flooding brings people and animals into contact with water contaminated by infected rodents. Dogs, cattle and other livestock may serve as early indicators of increased risk to people. Yet without reliable reporting between veterinarians and public-health authorities, an important warning can be missed.
Climate change is sharpening that threat. More intense rainfall, flooding and stagnant water create favourable conditions for mosquitoes and biting midges (which we call sandflies), while extreme weather can blur the boundaries between wildlife, domestic animals and human communities.
“People have to be alert and aware,” Georges says. “When you have stagnant water, flooding, a proliferation of mosquitoes and susceptible hosts, that is where these things start to happen.”
Another growing concern is antimicrobial resistance. Antibiotics used unnecessarily or incorrectly in people and animals can encourage bacteria to evolve resistance, making infections harder to treat. Georges says Trinidad and Tobago still needs stronger systems to track antimicrobial use, monitor resistant organisms, and translate research into regulation.
“The challenge is to move from dialogue to policy,” she says. “But it has to be data-driven. You have to know what is happening in each area.”
Her research has helped build that evidence, including studies of resistant strains and genetic markers in Salmonella associated with food and food-producing animals. The work is not glamorous, but it is foundational: before authorities can decide where to intervene, they must know what is circulating, where it exists, and how serious the risk may be.
One Health also becomes strikingly visible during disasters. Following the 2021 eruption of La Soufrière in St Vincent and the Grenadines, regional partners mobilised assistance for livestock and companion animals. Georges says St Vincent’s inclusion of animals in its disaster planning helped speed recovery.
Hurricane Beryl in 2024 presented a different logistical test. Georges and her colleagues helped move approximately 75 tonnes of animal feed to affected communities. During Grenada’s Independence weekend, when ships were crowded with food, drinks, generators and other supplies, one captain insisted that the animal feed receive priority.
“This is what we want One Health to be,” Georges says. “We want people to be moved to care and to give priority to the animals and the people who care for them, including the farmers.”
Ignoring animals in a crisis can also endanger people. Many residents will refuse evacuation if they must abandon pets, while the loss of livestock can deepen economic hardship and threaten food security. Disaster planning that treats animals as an afterthought is therefore not only incomplete; it misunderstands how Caribbean communities live.
For Georges, this interconnectedness is the heart of veterinary medicine and the future of Caribbean resilience. The region may be small and resource-constrained, but its close networks also create an opportunity to become a global model for co-operation.
“The overarching goal is to interlink human, environmental and animal health for the welfare of all of us,” she says. “It is about welfare, resilience and progress.”
The lesson that began with one Labrador now extends across laboratories, ministries, farms, hospitals and islands: protecting an animal can protect a family, a food system, an economy, and sometimes, an entire community.
