FAO: Global Veterinary Epidemiology Capacity Development Workshop

FAO, as part of its core mandate, has been supporting countries in Africa, Asia, North and Central America, for developing veterinary epidemiology skills and capacities of veterinary services to enable to prevent, control and eradicate animal diseases. Moreover, it is engaged in capacity development and implementation of Field Epidemiology Training Programme for Veterinarians (FETPV) and Applied Veterinary Epidemiology Training (AVET). These programmes help to improve and safeguard livestock assets and peoples’ livelihoods for the prevention and response to disease outbreaks. For these reasons on 19-21 February 2018 in Rome, Italy, FAO together with Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized a workshop on Global Epidemiology Coordination and Development of FETPV.

During the meeting, more than 80 experts from different institutions, countries and global and regional networks shared experiences in programme development and implementation for applied epidemiology training for veterinarians and Public Health and shared their views for a successful and harmonized development of FETPV.

Some important conclusions are:

• It was highlighted that FETPV programs development should be built upon existing programs such as the Field Epidemiology Training Programme (FETP) already developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AVET and other programs. Needs and requirements of veterinary services are different between countries, and therefore the development of harmonized and flexible epidemiology training programmes for veterinarians have to respond to the specific needs and context

• participants agreed that FAO takes the lead in writing the guidelines for developing FETPV programs by regions and countries and on developing set of good practices in order to implement and ensure sustainability of the plans

• one Health approach needs to be used as core competencies and opportunities between existing epidemiology capacity programs and FETPV; this will help to build a collaborative One Health workforce

• sustainability and long term engagement FETPV development relies on FETP-FETPV trainees passing and sharing their knowledge and training others.

Further information can be found at the following address:

http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/programmes/en/empres/news_160318.html