Capacity building
Through capacity building activities, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) assists animal health laboratories across several regions to ensure quality diagnostic services that are standardized and maintained for priority diseases and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). FAO ECTAD also builds animal health capacities in field epidemiology, value chain analysis and emergency preparedness to prevent, detect and respond to animal diseases and related threats, in addition to providing tools and learning centers to measure and improve animal health capacities at the national level.
Laboratories
Animal health laboratories play a crucial role in detecting pathogens before they emerge, spread and become difficult to control. Early detection of these pathogens helps countries to develop policies and protocols to enable timely and accurate confirmation of pathogens, which in turn support outbreak investigations and can break the chain of transmission to control outbreaks more rapidly. Therefore, having high quality and biosafe testing capabilities with well-equipped and well-trained personnel to detect animal diseases in a timely manner is one of FAO ECTAD’s priorities. Conducting assessments to identify priorities and gaps is essential to improve the capacity of animal health laboratories at the national and regional levels. FAO uses the Laboratory Mapping Tool (LMT) to measure and improve the quality of animal health laboratories.
In-Service Applied Veterinary Epidemiology Training (ISAVET)
The ISAVET programme aims to improve the field epidemiology skills and competencies of national animal health staff in target countries using a One Health approach, thereby strengthening national networks to promote collaboration and maximize efficient and sustainable use of available resources. Programme implementation by FAO ECTAD in Africa began with a regional pilot in 14 countries between 2018 and 2019, led by FAO with technical support from Texas A&M University. In 2020, the programme transitioned to national-level implementation supported by national stakeholders in 17 countries in Africa.
Field Epidemiology Training Programme for Veterinarians (FETP-V)
FETP-V provides government agencies with veterinary field epidemiologists who can carry out effective and timely outbreak response and surveillance for existing and emerging infectious diseases. The programme has been running since 2009 to train and cultivate a network of veterinary field epidemiologists.