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IGAD Member Countries commend STSD implementation – urge more actions to speeding-up cross-sectional surveys of priority diseases
© 2015 AU-IBAR. Group photo of participants.The 3rd Steering Committee Meeting, which evaluated the progress reports of the "Improving Animal Disease Surveillance in Support of Trade in IGAD Member States or "Surveillance of Trade-Sensitive Diseases (STSD)", Project underscored the need for speeding up the implementation of national activities in the area of disease surveillance and reporting (DR), as well as piloting of the livestock identification and traceability systems (LITS).
Commending the progresses made by the Project in the past six months, the Meeting, held on the 26th June, 2015, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has also recommended other important issues, ranging from capacity building to extension of the project’s life span. These include the following:
- Project’s capacity development activities to incorporate trainings on data analysis and outbreak investigation; as well as upgrading the skills of regional export quarantine personnel into operators of modern laboratory;
- The project to encourage member states to use the data and information generated through the cross-sectional surveys in order for them comply with OIE’s terms and conditions, which is set for official endorsement of control of PPR, FMD and CBPP;
- AU-IBAR and ICPALD to enhance collaboration and coordination with on-going regional and national projects addressing LITS and disease control;
- The Project to periodically review the DR and LITS guidelines by taking emerging issues into account; and
- The project to request a no-cost extension by 12 months, as the core activities of the project have not been covered as per the project plan due to the delay in the procurement and delivery of inputs.
STSD is a three (3) year-Project, funded by the European Union, which aims at strengthening technical and institutional capacities of the IGAD member states (MSs) to protect livestock assets, enhance the resilience of the livestock-based livelihoods and promote livestock trade. It also aims at reducing the impacts of TADs and zoonoses on trade through improved disease surveillance, animal identification and traceability as well as health certification systems in all the MS.