The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations has convened a two-day Country Consultative Meeting to finalize country level work plan for the FAO component of the USAID-Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT-2) Programme and establish necessary partnerships for immediate project implementation.

The meeting brought together government representatives, UN agencies, health experts, veterinarians, academia and partners from the wildlife and forestry sector from three Anglophone countries (Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone) who are gathered in Freetown from 2nd -3rd June, 2016.
The exercise is part of the series of consultations with each target country on the conduct of activities concerning Ebola virus and other filo viruses' surveillance as outlined in the EPT-2 programme.

The EPT-2 programme is aimed at building and strengthening basic capacity in animal health to detect early and respond rapidly to emerging disease crises threatening animal and human health. Its implementation will be aligned with the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) objectives.

Partnership in responding to emerging disease threats

According to the FAO Representative (ad interim), Dr. Mary Okumu, the EPT-2 programme will accelerate the working together not only of persons from the animal or human health disciplines, but also environmentalists, wild life experts, socio-economists, forestry scientists, and others to combat re-emergence of infectious diseases with drastic consequences.
"We firmly believe that this programme will also contribute to achieving FAO's mandate on food and nutrition security, and enhance livelihoods and resilience of poor livestock farming communities," she added.

Madam Okumu assured the economic partners, and authorities of the beneficiary countries present that FAO is committed to make the programme a success by deploying experts from different disciplines and working very closely with its technical partners to institutionalize the One Health concept.

Talking on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Food Security, the Chief Agriculture Officer, Francis Sankoh stated that animal production plays a direct role in the process of socio-economic transformation and contributes to the nation's nutrition and food security, but the sector is still underexploited because of difficulties in animal health care.
"Animal health is directly linked with human health and we are all aware that 70 percent of emerging diseases are of zoonotic nature," he said.

The United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone, John Hoover expressed delight that the three countries have met to plan the way forward on preventing, detecting and responding to deadly infectious disease threats as the outbreak of the Ebola Disease Virus has proven that no single organisation or country can effectively tackle infectious disease threats.
"We have learnt that we must work together, we must cooperate and collaborate, and we must form lasting coalitions and partnerships," he stated.
He encouraged the countries to maintain the spirit of partnership and teamwork to move on and strive to ensure that they are all better equipped to prevent, detect, and respond to future outbreaks.

Expanding USAID-FAO successful partnership

Building on the success of USAID-FAO partnership since the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) crisis in 2004, the FAO Director-General and the US Ambassador in Rome signed a new global grant agreement of US$ 87 million during a ceremony organised at FAO headquarters on 20th October 2015.

This grant will support the implementation of several components of the EPT-2 Programme and contribute to achieving a number of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) objectives.

The grant covers several countries in Africa, Asia and Near East. Funding for Africa is nearly US$ 60 million for three years. The EPT-2 programme is launched for a period of 5 years (2015-2019).