Photo: ©FAO

Animal diseases often occur in ecosystems that span several countries and evidence shows that their prevention, control and eradication can be achieved via efficient coordination and collaboration among countries. Best practices and lessons learned from an outbreak in one country are particularly valuable to other countries that need to prevent or respond to similar outbreaks.

Moreover, the chances of rapidly detecting, controlling or eliminating a pathogen increase significantly when neighboring countries act in a concerted manner as part of a wider geographic strategy, thus decreasing economic implications of animal diseases on producers and markets, regionally.

In order to support Central Asian countries in their disease control strategies, FAO, through its Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (REU), and in collaboration with the Sub-Regional Representation for Central Asia of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), have lead the creation of the Central Asian Animal Health Network (CAAHN). The network serves as an umbrella for countries in the region, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan  and Uzbekistan,  to collaborate on animal health issues and exchange their information and experiences among each other.

A webinar jointly organized by FAO and OIE today provided countries an opportunity to discuss the regional approach for animal health on data collection, sharing, analysis and visualization via maps and graphs. For the moment, data collection efforts, will focus on brucellosis, which is a high priority for all Central Asian countries. Data are foreseen to be collected every 3 months,

FAO demonstrated a platform developed for CAAHN to share consolidate and visualizes animal health data. Countries learned how their quarterly reports are being processed and analyzed, as well as how to upload them directly to the database starting from the second quarter of 2020. The OIE presented an update on the upcoming developments in their World Animal Health Information System (WAHIS), including the creation of regional modules foreseen by early 2021. This type of regional collaboration, which aims to expand data collection in the future to other diseases of importance in the region, requires a robust web platform to centralize data and facilitate the analysis and visualization of data.

Regional animal health networks offer a framework for building strong technical capacity, competency, leadership and a critical mass of regionally networked specialists. A regional animal health network will join forces to 1) exchange information and experience; 2) standardize laboratory, field prevention/control, operating, communication and other procedures; 3) harmonize policies and approaches; 4) identify gaps, weaknesses and priorities; and 5) fulfill these gaps, e.g. by providing training, capacity building. This can be achieved by means of enhanced cooperation between veterinary services, exchange of people, training and capacity building, organization of ring trials, joint work plans, etc. Efficient coordination of disease/theme specific sub-networks.

Countries within the network will join the next annual CAAHN meeting hosted by Kyrgyzstan in autumn 2020, where priority diseases prevention, laboratory diagnostic techniques and control strategies, as well as their harmonization in accordance with international recommendations will be discussed. In addition, a Memorandum of Understanding for data sharing among other means of collaboration between countries, FAO and OIE is ready to be signed in the coming months.

Contact point:

Daniel Beltran-Alcrudo

Technical Advisor (Animal Health)

FAO, Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia
Email: [email protected]