In order to address the increasing health challenges of livestock, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is calling for teamwork among stakeholders to find solutions to the situation.
The call was made by Dr Willington Bessong Ojong, the team leader of FAOs’s Emergency Center for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD).
He made the call on Friday (April 25), as Uganda joins the rest of the world to commemorate World Veterinary Day set for Saturday, April 26.
Bessong said that the theme of the day, ‘Animal health takes a team” highlights the importance of collaboration as a requirement for an effective veterinary workforce within statutory institutions.
For effective management of animal health, there should be high-quality veterinary services with an interplay of multiple professionals including clinical practice, public health, food animal production medicine, research and academia, regulatory and government roles, industry and pharmaceuticals, wildlife and environmental health, military and para-veterinary services, and animal welfare and advocacy.
Quoting the 2021 National Livestock Census report by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, he said that 71.5% of livestock-keeping households receive animal health extension services from private-sector veterinary officers.
He added that most of these are para-veterinary professionals.
A para-vet is an animal health worker who provides basic veterinary services, particularly in areas where qualified veterinarians are scarce.
“With a few veterinarians in practice, often employed by the government, veterinary paraprofessionals are in many cases the first and only point of call to livestock owners at grassroots,” Bessong said.
In addition to Bessong’s argument, other experts in the livestock sector such as Dr John Ilukol from the World Bank added that most para-vets lack adequate training to ably diagnose animal health challenges which makes it hard to offer solutions.
He, therefore, called for more training of veterinary doctors and also para-vets to gain the adequate skills needed for the good of the health of the livestock sector.
During World Veterinary Day week, the Ministry of Agriculture Animal Industry and Fisheries has reiterated its support towards the sector through the provision of motorcycles to district-level veterinary officers to ease mobility and delivery of services and vaccines to farmers.
The ministry added that they are working through regional and international partnerships to increase access to vaccines that manage some diseases affecting the livestock sector such as foot and mouth disease.
Impact of animal health diseases
According to FAO, Tick and tick-borne diseases alone can account for more than 50% of farmers’ running costs, while other diseases like brucellosis have been estimated to cost over $641 million with the majority of costs borne by consumers and cattle keepers.
