FAO online course on lumpy skin disease accredited by the South African Veterinary Council

10 May 2021, Harare – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Virtual Learning Centre for Southern Africa (SFS-VLC) achieved a regional milestone when it received an official accreditation of its online course on lumpy skin disease (LSD) as part of a continuous professional development process. The South African Veterinary Council (SAVC) announced this achievement as part of its routine assessment and acknowledgement of training activities that build the capacity of veterinarians and veterinary paraprofessionals registered with the SAVC.

At the beginning of 2021, FAO’s Virtual Learning Centre for Southern Africa (SFS-VLC), with support from the European Commission for the control of foot and mouth disease (EuFMD), hosted an online training course titled lumpy skin disease training course for Southern Africa (LSD-VLC-SADC) from 3 February to 3 March 2021. This tutored online course was designed to build capacity in recognition, diagnosis, prevention and control of LSD, a vector-borne skin disease of mainly domestic cattle caused by a virus. The disease impacts negatively on both livelihoods of smallholder cattle keepers and international trade in animals and animal products, making prevention and control of the disease an absolute necessity. Lumpy skin disease is one of transboundary animal diseases (TADs), meaning it has the propensity to cross international borders. Harmonization of prevention and control measures, such as achieved by this regional training, is key to controlling the disease.

The SAVC acknowledged the LSD course as professional development activity following up to the success of the online course. Apart from improving skills in the region, participants who are registered with the SAVC will benefit continuous professional development credit and this course can be repeated from time to time as needed. The SAVC is the regulatory body for the veterinary and para-veterinary professions in South Africa and has a statutory duty to determine scientific and ethical standards of professional conduct and education.

“The accreditation of the LSD online course is a milestone in the efforts to capacitate human resources in the veterinary sector to carry out their disease prevention and outbreak control responsibilities. FAO calls for more collaboration in the identification of training gaps and design and delivery of appropriate courses to address the knowledge gaps. Controlling livestock diseases will go a long way in improving livelihoods and reducing poverty and hunger,” said Patrice Talla, FAO Sub-Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa.

For the past 14 months, the SFS-VCL working in collaboration with the EuFMD has been developing and delivering online courses to address knowledge gaps identified through a multi-stakeholder process of training needs identification for the region. The target audience covers veterinarians and veterinary paraprofessionals in both the public and private sectors in the 16 countries in the SADC, with some courses recruiting from countries in sub-Saharan Africa outside the SADC.

The context and development of the lump skin disease online course

The LSD course was hosted with the objective of building capacity of veterinarians and veterinary paraprofessionals to recognize, collect samples for laboratory confirmation, and institute measures for prevention and control of the disease.

“This is a great achievement that should be emulated by both our partners and the audience that we target. The SAVC are a respected veterinary statutory body in the region and their recognition of our courses as CPD activities inspires confidence. A veterinary human resource that is equipped with proper skills for early detection and appropriate response to incursions of TADs is an asset to the veterinary authority and to the entire sub-region,” said, Berhanu Bedane, the Livestock Production and Health Officer for the FAO Sub-Regional Office for Southern Africa.

Training is conducted by experienced subject matter experts who can be mobilized from anywhere in the world. Experience in the region is important for context and so the SFS-VLC ensures a strong presence of regional experts in the team.

“The course was well organised and co-ordinated by FAO, providing a world-class level of training to all participants. A number of key challenges relating to diagnosis and control of LSD of particular concern to SADC were raised and discussed, highlighting the critical role of the South African Agricultural Research Council’s Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (ARC-OVI) in providing research-based solutions to regional problems,” said David Wallace, a long-standing Senior Researcher with the ARC-OVI. The ARC-OVI has been pioneering work on the characterisation of LSD, the virus, diagnostics and control since the 1950s.

Of the 16 countries in the SADC region, 15 were represented in the training, with 116 participants graduating.

“It was very good and useful course. Now that it is acknowledged as a global problem, I hope more funds would be availed to conduct more research on the behavior of the virus, in particular what maintains it in the environment in the inter-epidemic period”, said Emmanuel Adom, a state veterinarian from Botswana who attended the course.

The SFS-VLC will continue in its mandate to roll out training courses informed by the needs of the region. Currently the centre is hosting training on developing national atlases of tsetse flies and African animal trypanosomosis, a disease transmitted by the flies. On the cards is yet another regional animal health threat, African swine fever, a viral disease of pigs. Outbreaks are usually associated with massive loss of pigs as well as temporary, and sometimes long term, loss of international markets for live pigs and pork products as importers fear to import the disease. The course is planned to start in the middle of August 2021 and is again open to all animal health professionals in the SADC region.