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The Ghana Poultry Network (GAPNET) develops the workforce capacity of the animal health sector of Ghana using the FAO Event Mobile Application surveillance tool 

 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through its Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) inGhana supports the training of 30 Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs) from the ten communities and five veterinary technical officers of then Builsa North Municipality (Sandema), in the Upper East Region, in Northern Ghana, using the telehealth concept by applying the FAO-Event Mobile Application (EMA-i) tool for early disease reporting from the field.

The training is conducted by the Ghana Poultry Network (GAPNET), with financial support from the United Kingdom Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Traditionally, FAO and the Veterinary Service Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture of Ghana have worked together to institutionalize and integrate the use of the FAO EMA-I tool into the Veterinary Service Directorate (VSD) reporting system, with funding support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). On this occasion, GAPNET will take the lead, with technical support from FAO, in organizing this training and linking EMA-i to CAWHs for animal disease reporting in the respective communities of the CAHWs.

In the past, the VSD experienced difficulties in providing sufficient and adequate animal health care service delivery to all livestock keepers in the communities. To address this problem, the Government of Ghana introduced the concept and model of Community Animal Health Workers (CAHWs), which aims to train members of hard-to-reach and at-risk communities in good husbandry practices and basic animal health care, raising awareness on the prevention and control of zoonotic diseases, within the framework of the One Health approach.

Strengthening of early warning systems in Ghana

Event Mobile application (EMA-i) technology has been adopted in the country from February 2019 in 21 districts. This innovative adoption represented a significant reinforcement of the national epidemio-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.

At the opening ceremony, the FAO Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) Team Leader for Ghana, Garba Maina Ahmed, said that “CAHWs have a unique opportunity to improve livestock production and food security because of their presence in the communities, living with small ruminants and rural poultry, and also considering the gender outlook of the project targeting women to be trained as CAHWs”.

In his opening address, Godwin Baba, representative of the Ministry for Local Government and Rural Development in Builsa Municipal Assembly, said that "the training of CAHWS will address a long-term gap in the livestock sector, as lack of veterinary staff in most operational areas of the municipality, which has obviously affected greatly the huge potential livestock development opportunities in the municipality". The representative of GAPNET, Gloria Essel, affirmed that “The CAHWs will serve as an interface between the livestock holders and Veterinary Service Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture”.

With this training, CAHWs can identify and provide basic treatment and timely reporting of disease outbreaks to veterinary authorities. For the supervision and monitoring of the activities of CAHWs, five veterinary technical officers were trained to be competent users of EMA-i. In the absence or severe shortage of the veterinary work force, trained community workers will be able to play a critical role in expanding animal disease intelligence and vigilance supporting early warning, detection, reporting and outbreak investigation.