FAO tackles human-wildlife-livestock threats in Ghana
Wildlife staff in National Parks and Zoos and Veterinary Service Directorate staff are trained in disease surveillance and reporting, using the EMA-i tool.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Ghana launched a training course to promote the use of the Event Mobile Application (EMA-i) for wildlife monitoring in national parks among staff of the Forestry Commission's Wildlife Division.
As the human population growths, the demand for natural resources increases. This has led to wildlife habitat degradation and fragmentation with humans and livestock encroaching on natural habitats, increasing the risk of disease transmission among wildlife and livestock. This encroachment leads to human and wildlife conflicts (HWCs) which is currently one of the major threats to the survival of many endangered species in the wild. This poses danger to the well-being of community livelihoods in Africa and promotes a global pandemic threat, as seen recently with the incursion of Ebola or avian influenza.
Ghana does not have a formal wildlife zoonotic disease surveillance system and lacks sufficient staff to support it. Currently, there are only two qualified wildlife veterinarians in Ghana who rely on wildlife rangers and veterinary technicians, and who have not received formal training in wildlife disease surveillance to effectively control and prevent wildlife diseases.
At the opening ceremony of the four-day training, the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) team leader for Ghana, Garba Maina Ahmed, said that “ the training was a follow-up to the one held in Mole National Park in December 2019. However this training is specifically to train wildlife staff in the use of EMA-I tool to enhance early reporting and response”.
In his opening address, Asamoah Boateng, Executive Director of the Wildlife Division of the Ghana Forestry Commission of Ghana said that "wildlife disease surveillance will assist in early detection for early response to prevent the spread of wildlife disease pathogens to domestic and human populations and vice versa".
The emerging and re-emergence of zoonoses (those that spread between animals and people such as rabies, anthrax, zoonotic avian influenza, zoonotic tuberculosis, viral hemorrhagic fevers (Lassa fevers, dengue, and Ebola) and trypanosomiasis are very common features emanating from HWC. They require the development of the capacity of the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and the Veterinary Services Directorate (VSD) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to provide more informed data on wildlife animal diseases. For this reason, the EMA-i tool will be key in this training, since the application will help wildlife guards to carry out early and rapid reporting and notification of animal and wildlife diseases to the VSD.
EMA-i innovative technology in Ghana
Event Mobile application (EMA-i) technology has been adopted in the country from February 2019 in 20 districts. This innovative adoption represented a significant reinforcement of the national epidemic-surveillance network. EMA-i launching was supported by FAO Ghana with the provision of smartphones and desktop computers including internet connectivity to implement the pilot phase of the EMA-i.
From its implementation, a total of 148 disease events have been reported by EMA-i in a three-month period (February-May 2019), which represents three times more than the number reported the year before. FAO’s support to operationalize the EMA-i tool in Ghana has been beneficial to the VSD.
The training has been organized by the FAO ECTAD unit of the FAO Representation in Ghana, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Veterinary Services of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. This reinforcement of wildlife guards and other collaborators’ capacities on wild animal disease surveillance will build the capacity of staff of wildlife in using tools for data collection for value chain and surveillance for priority zoonotic diseases.