News roundup 30 January to 10 February 2023
News roundup 30 January to 10 February 2023
©FAO
| ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE (AMR) | |
| ASIA AND THE PACIFIC |
| INDIA The group recognized that substantial surveillance work had been done through INFAAR. The reliability and quality of data were well-established because FAO-USAID has supported: intensive training to all members, strengthening of the data quality system, use of validated data management software (WHONET), participation in an external quality assessment scheme and periodic review by the officially constituted Advisory Board for INFAAR. Accordingly, the expert group recommended the INFAAR Advisory Board consider this consolidated data as the database for AMR in India in the animal health sector. |
| CAPACITY BUILDING | |
| REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC AND LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC FAO supports Lao farmers to boost cattle trade to China FAO kicked off a two-week training course on animal quarantine management from 6 to 17 February 2023 in Sing District, a border area between Lao People’s Democratic Republic and China. The training course aimed to accelerate safer cattle trade between the two countries and improve cattle export to China. Read the news here or here. |
| BANGLADESH One Health in action for education FAO has been supporting training for veterinary teachers as part of workforce development to ensure the different veterinary schools produce quality veterinary graduates. In collaboration with Tufts University and Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, FAO continued to train the faculties of veterinary schools on disease control. Two batches have been trained by FAO between 22 January 2023 to 2 February 2023 to improve the competencies of pedagogy trainers on the contents and delivery of the revised module and to sensitize the faculties on livestock disease control and pedagogical skills. |
| SURVEILLANCE | |
| VIET NAM Optimize the detection of avian influenza viruses in live poultry markets FAO collaborates with École National Vétérinaire Toulouse (ENVT) and Centre for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD) to estimate the performance of various avian influenza surveillance protocols and to provide recommendations to the Department of Animal Health (DAH) on optimized approaches to detect the emergence of new viral subtypes of avian influenza early. DAH-FAO LBM surveillance data collected between 2016 and 2022 will be analysed together with the data from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Cambodia, Myanmar and Indonesia using the Bayesian latent class model to consider the diversity of sampling strategies across countries. |
| INDONESIA Zoonoses and EIDs surveillance plan in the domestic animal-wildlife interface A coordination meeting to discuss zoonoses and emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) surveillance plan in the domestic animal-wildlife interface was conducted by FAO and the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Veterinary Research Center and Applied Zoology Research Center – National Research and Innovation Agency between 24 and 25 January 2023. All stakeholders committed to strengthening collaboration for disease surveillance efforts, including joint capacity building, laboratory networking and sharing data for collaborative analysis. The meeting produced a list of needs for wildlife surveillance and coordinated surveillance activities, including strengthening capacity building for field officers to support active and passive surveillance, capacity building on biosafety and biorisk, and support for disease investigation of zoonoses and EIDs, as well as laboratory networks. |
| PARTNERSHIP | |
 | REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Project update with ASEAN FAO’s SMART-ASEAN project visited the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) Secretariat office from 24 to 26 January 2023 to meet with several divisions, including the food, agriculture and forestry division, the health division, the poverty elimination and gender division and the environment division. The purpose of the meetings was to discuss the progress of the project implementation and to follow-up on the ongoing collaboration and potential cooperation in the future. |
| REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Courtesy visit to Chulalongkorn University FAO met with the Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of Chulalongkorn University to discuss ways to collaborate more on animal health laboratory technology and research in the region. The team also visited their laboratory, designated as the FAO Reference Centre for AMR – the only one in Asia. A bundle of FAO ECTAD publications has been handed over to the faculty’s library to support knowledge-sharing with the students |
| LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC AMR IEC materials and ASF guidelines to be utilized across Lao People's Democratic Republic Last Thursday FAO handed over AMR communication and awareness materials and guidelines on African swine fever prevention and control in smallholder pig farming to the Department of Livestock and Fisheries (DLF) to help reduce disease threats. Read the news here. |
| VIET NAM Discussion on zoonotic disease reduction The Safety Across Asia for the Global Environment (SAFE) project team met with representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Ha Noi on 9 February 2023 to discuss project implementation. SAFE is a two-year project funded by the EU and led by UNODC, in close collaboration with FAO and UNEP. The project aims to reduce the risk of zoonoses from wildlife. |
| ONE HEALTH | |
| REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC Support on developing the guidebook for countering zoonotic spillover FAO continued providing support on developing the guidebook for countering zoonotic spillover of high-consequence pathogens organized by the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and International Network for Government Science Advice (INGSA) in Asia. The guidebook will be designed to help those working at the local level in the Southeast Asia region to implement evidence-based strategies to prevent zoonotic spillover. |
| REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC AND INDONESIA |
| REGIONAL ASIA AND THE PACIFIC |
©FAO/Rindu Putri
