Pre-appraisal mission of the panafrican rinderpest campaign.pdf

Rinderpest is a contagious viral disease of large ruminants, both domestic and wild, whichis frequently fatal. No curative treatment exists but prophylaxis based on vaccination andquarantine allows it to be controlled and then eradicated.A campaign of vaccination before 1976 considerably reduced its incidence in Africa.However, the disease remained endemic in.East Africa and showed epizootic resurgences inWest Africa at the end of the 1970s. The idea of eradicating the disease by a co-ordinatedpan-African campaign was born at the beginning of the 1980s.The PARC programme was conceived with this specific objective as well as theimprovement of the services provided to the livestock farmers and the pan-African coordination of animal healthcare. Since 1986 it has been financed by the European Union(EU) and consists of two parts : the first part is support to the co-ordination by theOrganisation of African Unity (OAU) through its specialist organisation, IBAR ; the secondpart is a group of national components which have been negotiated on a case by case basiswith the different countries.The Co-ordination Unit (CU) is based at Nairobi at the headquarters of IBAR. It isresponsible for the co-ordination of the group of components and for tasks of commoninterest whose need has been identified either in the course of operations or by the only globalevaluation of the programme to date, in 1990.In total 35 countries have been involved during the different phases of the programme and13 national components are still running. Beside the organisation of mass vaccinationprogrammes and the means which are linked to it, the programme is clearly conceived as atool for policy reform, seeking to have implemented by the various Governments measureswhich will ensure a better financial foundation for the services provided to livestock farmers.To prepare and follow up these national components the CU systematically practices adialogue approach with the countries, based on their previous political commitmentobtained within the framework of the OAU and complemented by sub-regional annualinformation sharing meetings.