After three years of planning, Professor Sandy Love, as President of the Association, and the University of Glasgow will be host to an international gathering of equine veterinary specialists from Wednesday 11 to Saturday 14 September 2002.

Opening the prestigious event will be Dr Elisabeth Svendsen, MBE, founder of the world famous Donkey Sanctuary.

The University of Glasgow Veterinary School has played a large part in enabling this charity to help donkeys and mules throughout the world. The Donkey Sanctuary has been able to liaise with, and has been supported and encouraged by the University as it has grown into the International Donkey Protection Trust.

Back in the early 70's, donkeys were not popular with the horse fraternity as they were considered to be the possible source of lungworm. In 1976 a trial was done with Hilary Clayton from the University of Glasgow Veterinary School and the ongoing far-reaching work on parasites was started.

This link with the University of Glasgow Veterinary School expanded into working abroad, where over 56 million donkeys toil, and as a result the International Donkey Protection Trust was formed which sees vets from the Sanctuary working in Egypt, India, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The BEVA conference will offer an advanced scientific programme of clinical and continuous professional development sessions.

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Media Relations Office (media@gla.ac.uk)

The opening ceremony is at 09.45 Thursday 12th September and a Press Conference will be held on Thursday 12 September at 13.00.

Those wishing to attend must pre-register via BEVA office ( tel 0207 610 6080 or during conference 0141 330 5999).

First published: 10 September 2002