Nairobi Kenya. Twenty eight veterinary officers from the Greater Horn of Africa are undertaking an integrated training programme in Surveillance and epidemiology of trade-related transboundary animal diseases (TADs). The training programme which commenced on February 24th 2014 is being conducted by the University of Nairobi, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. The training runs for thirteen weeks in three phases. Phase I runs from 24th February to 28th March 2014 while phase two and three will run from 29th March to 27th April 2014 and 28th April to 23rd May 2014, respectively. At the end of phase 1, participants will develop a reform action plan (PAP) relevant to needs of their respective veterinary departments that they will be expected to implement in their respective departments.
The objective of the training programme is to bring together epidemiologists from the departments of veterinary services in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHoA) to equip them with knowledge and skills in functional use of surveillance and epidemiology to manage and control trade-related transboundary animal diseases; enhance communication and cooperation between the personnel of epidemiology units throughout the region and maximize use of regional knowledge resources in order to strengthen the teaching of epidemiology through linkages between academia and industry.
The Standard Methods and Procedures in Animal Health (SMP-AH) is a four year project (14th March 2012 to 30th September 2016) being implemented by AU-IBAR in partnership with Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and nine countries in the Greater Horn of Africa (GHoA) namely, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. The project is supported by United States Agency for International Development, East Africa Mission (USAID/EA) under the framework of the U.S President's Global Hunger and Food Security initiative, known as Feed the Future.