eBusiness Weekly
Patrick Kormawa
HARARE – The hosting of a two – week workshop by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on strengthening animal disease surveillance capacity in Southern Africa, here in Harare represents a vital step in response to the increase in outbreaks of trans-boundary animal diseases and other infectious diseases that can be naturally transmitted between animals and humans in the SADC region.
The livestock sector is extremely important to the region because, meat, milk, and eggs provide sources of high quality animal protein and ensures food and nutrition security of millions of people in the region.
Livestock production is also an important source of income and a safety net for hundreds of thousands of people, particularly rural women and youth, and is a significant contributor to agricultural GDP. As a continent, Africa is endowed with vast livestock resources.
In recent decades, the world food economy has seen a shift towards increased consumption of animal-source foods and against the backdrop of increasing world population, urbanisation and globalisation – this provides significant opportunities for African countries.
However, apart from a handful of countries in Southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa), which enjoy access to the lucrative export markets for meat, most countries have not been able to unlock the full potential of their livestock resources.
Apart from the endemic presence of trade sensitive diseases, the challenges are many and varied, including: weak and under resourced veterinary services, lack of developed livestock value chains and related infrastructure, lack of appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks and lack of technical expertise and capacities for effective animal disease control.
Emerging and re-emerging animal diseases, if not adequately controlled, can have severe implications on animal health and food security. As the lead inter-governmental organisation with the global mandate to end world hunger and ensure food security for all, the FAO together with its financial partners such as USAID is actively engaged in providing technical assistance to Zimbabwe and most other SADC countries to address these and related challenges.
As many diseases of public health concern in include infectious diseases that can be naturally transmitted between animals and humans, they are often best detected and controlled at the source in animals.
The FAO and its partners place emphasis on building the capacity of veterinary and public health services by promoting the use of participatory methodologies in disease surveillance for early warning and rapid response. As such, the hosting of a workshop on ‘Strengthening Surveillance Capacity of Animal Diseases in Southern Africa’ by Zimbabwe, is a welcome initiative.
It is important for all veterinarians and animal health technicians working as frontline staff in the field to be familiarised with participatory epidemiology (the branch of medicine which deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases and other factors relating to health) and surveillance methodologies currently in use in the management of animal diseases.
Through training, we want our animal health experts to understand strategies to combat the diseases in order to strengthen early warning and contingency planning.
We also want our animal health experts to not only be familiar with the tools and techniques of participatory rural appraisals (PRAs), but to have an appreciation of the importance of animal diseases on public health and the livelihoods of livestock communities in your respective countries.
The media has very important role to play in informing the public on evolving livestock events in the region. When all stakeholders – our farmers, governments, international partners and animal health experts all play their part, Zimbabwe and the entire SADC region can unlock the potential that lies in the livestock sector.
This can uplift the quality of livelihoods of our farmers and generate more foreign currency revenue for our economies.
This is only possible when we take practical steps to strengthen our animal health systems through participatory epidemiology and surveillance methodologies currently in use in the management of animal diseases in our region.
***Patrick Kormawa, is the FAO sub-regional coordinator for Southern Africa
