@FAOGhana/David Youngs

The active surveillance mission will be conducted in Mole National Park and Boabeng Fiema Monkey Sanctuary to detect priority zoonotic diseases, including COVID 19.

In December 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations supported the Veterinary Service Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture and the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission to conduct training at the Mole National Park for wildlife guards in protected areas in the country. As part of the training participants visit one fringe community within the Mole National Park. The participants observed that the domestic animals in the community were affected with Peste des petits ruminants (PPR), that could be transmissible between the domestic and wildlife animals. Based on the observations, participants recommended for active surveillance to be conducted in some fringe communities in the Mole National Park.

USAID PREDICT-2 project in Ghana conducted community disease and wildlife disease surveillance at the Boabeng-Fiema surveillance site. The surveillance focused on the wildlife-human interface.  PEDICT -2  recommended  that active  conduct surveillance be conducted  at the domestic-animal interface in order to complete the surveillance at human-wildlife- livestock interface at the monkey sanctuary

Following up from  the two recommendations  by PREDICT_-2 Project in Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary and workshop participants at Mole National Park in December 2019,  the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) conducts a one week-mission starting today to 23 February 2021 -3rd March 2021 to screen for priority zoonotic diseases in  domestic animals in  ruminants ,pigs,cats,and dogs and chickens, and wild animals in bats, baboons and monkeys at the domestic animal-wildlife interface at Mole National Park and at Boabeng-Fiema Monkey Sanctuary.

Epidemic livestock diseases are very frequently spread by the movement of infected animals. Emphasis in active disease surveillance for such diseases must be consider in situations where animals are on the move. This includes livestock markets, livestock trading routes, slaughter facilities, border areas and situations where people and their animals are on the move including nomadism, cross-border transhumance, and refugees from wars and civil strife. In all these movements, wildlife disease surveillance should also be not overlooked. Wildlife may provide a reservoir of infections for some diseases but may also act as a sensitive indicators of diseases which are not very clinically apparent in adjacent livestock populations.

Infectious diseases at the human-wildlife-livestock interface threaten wildlife species survival , impact livestock trade and economies, agricultural livelihoods, and pose a global pandemic threats as recently seen with Ebola, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS CoV).

Therefore, it is relevant,when possible,  to conduct active surveillance for priority zoonotic diseases at the domestic animal-wildlife interface. Additionally, research is ongoing around the world to establish the actual mechanism of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Coronavirus Disease 2019(COVID-19) between animals and humans, and the virus’ origin. In countries such as the United States of America, South 

Africa and Slovenia, a number of companion animals (cats, dogs, ferrets) and zoo animals (tigers, lions, puma, cougar, snow leopards, gorillas) have been reported to have been infected with COVID-19 virus, from affected humans. These emerging infections in canine and feline species are  great concerns to public health, animal health and environmental health in the human-animal-wildlife interface.

 In Ghana, COVID-19 cases in humans have been recorded in the Savannah and Bono East regions, where Mole National Park and Boabeng Fiema Monkey Sanctuary are located respectively. Thus, an extensive active surveillance in domestic and wild animals would help in establishing concretely the likelihood of the virus transmission from human to animals and vice versa.

Close co-operation is required between veterinary and wildlife authorities

Different human activities of wild animal-human interface  such as hunting ,farming and free range of domestic animals  within the Mole National Park in various fringe communities  is a great concern of viral pathogens spill over, transmission and spread from animals to humans and vice versa. There are of the few dozen villages located along the park boundaries. In such communities, some members engage in subsistence hunting, which pose a risk for pathogen spillover, transmission and spread of wildlife pathogens to domestic animal species and community members.

The active surveillance mission team will consist of laboratory and epidemiological experts from the Veterinary Services Directorate of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and the Kumasi Collaborative Research Centre of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology from the national level. They will be supported at the local level by four resident staff from the Ghana Health Service, Veterinary Service, Wildlife Division and Environmental Health. FAO, through its Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) (ECTAD), will provide technical and logistical support in the field. All participants will work under a "One Health" approach, a collaborative, multisectoral, and transdisciplinary approach with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment.

The mission will collect samples from domestic animals in selected communities for the diagnosis of the six priority zoonotic diseases (Anthrax, Rabies, Zoonotic Avian Influenza, Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers, Zoonotic Tuberculosis, and Trypanosomiasis ) in the country. It will also conduct participatory surveillance for various diseases in selected communities and identify the type of viral families circulating in domestic animals in Mole Park and the Boabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary.

The main conclusions will be drawn from the analyses of samples  collected from domestic animals(pigs, dogs, cats, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks,) and wildlife animals(grasscutter,  bats, baboons, monkeys) in the Accra Veterinary Laboratory in Accra. Whenever, needed samples will be sent to reference laboratory for influenza or coronavirus for sequencing and molecular analyses.