Alex, Egypt - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The General Organization for Veterinary Services (GOVS) conducted a Two-days National Consultative workshop to develop the first 2-years work plan for Emerging Diseases Threats Next Generation (EDiT NEXT GEN) 5-years program (2020-2024), funded by The United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The workshop was attended by representatives from The Central Laboratory for Evaluation of Veterinary Biologics (CLEVB), Animal Health Research Institute (AHRI) and The Central Laboratory for Veterinary Quality Control on Poultry Production (NLQP), in addition to representatives from The Ministry of Health and Population (MOHP) involving Central Public Health Laboratory (CPHL) and Epi-Surveillance Unit (ESU), The Ministry of Environment (EEAA), USAID/Egypt and The World Health Organization (WHO).

The overall objective of the workshop was to continue the efforts of the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) in involving country stakeholders in planning for the next project’s phase, while specific objectives of the workshop were to define and discuss the project’s components and align them with global EDiT-NEXT GEN USAID program goal and objectives and jointly develop the logical framework with clear outputs and activities.

“As a complement to FAO's efforts to control avian influenza, USAID will initiate (EDiT NEXT GEN) program in 2020 aiming to ensure that the animal health systems of the target countries have the resources, capacity and expertise to prepare, prevent, detect, and respond to zoonosis using a One Health approach through close engagement of relevant stakeholders including the private sector” Hussein Gadain, FAO representative in Egypt said.

“Egypt has been selected to be part of EDiT- NEXT GEN program in specific components, which are avian influenza prevention, detection, and control, MERS Cov research and preparedness and Africa Sustainable Livestock (ASL2050). These efforts by Government, FAO and USAID are expected to increase the resilience of small poultry farms by adopting good practices given that livestock constitute a major component of rural livelihoods” he added.

“Through its strategic partnership and cooperation with the Egyptian government and FAO, USAID has invested more than $ 40 million in prevention and control of emerging diseases threats, particularly avian influenza. Recently, MERS Cov research and preparedness, and Africa Sustainable Livestock (ASL2050) have been added” Akmal Elerian, Senior Project Management Specialist, Office of Education and Health, USAID-Egypt said.

“GOVS will provide all the require support to the project activities within the framework of EDiT NEXT GEN program to achieve the desired goals of controlling the Emerging Diseases Threats” Jihad Salah, General Director of Poultry Diseases at GOVS.

“During the past month, a number of consultative sessions were organized between ECTAD team and officials from GOVS, Laboratories and Government Research Institutes to develop the general features of the work plan’s components of the (EDiT NEXT GEN) program that we had discussed at the workshop”, Toni Ettel, Programme Coordinator at FAO Egypt said.