Semi-Annual Report: Syndromic Surveillance for Livestock Health Training

The project aimed to improve smallholder animal health and nutrition through increased awareness of key diseases and control methods. The project's objectives included improving awareness of trade-related and zoonotic diseases through the creation of passive surveillance along the value chain, promoting awareness and recognition of foreign animal diseases for US veterinarians, and supporting existing USDA and USAID commitments to regional disease control to advance trade. The project's background highlighted the importance of food security, which exists when all people have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life. Food insecurities often occur in countries with unstable or compromised economic, political, health, and agricultural systems. In developing countries, the presence of infectious diseases among community livestock populations can compromise livestock health and animal source food production, with detrimental effects on human health and nutrition. Malnutrition is a significant issue worldwide, particularly in underdeveloped countries, where it affects one-third of children, contributing to health and development complications. Animal source food products, such as meat and milk, have essential nutrients responsible for adequate physical and mental growth and development in children. In Uganda, dietary and environmental factors have a positive correlation with the high proportions of children who suffer the effects of malnutrition. The project's accomplished activities included syndromic surveillance for livestock health training, which involved farmers, district veterinary officers, and community-based programs for disease surveillance and producer and health worker trainings. The project extended across much of Uganda, from the Mt. Elgon region to Arua, and through districts in Central, Southern, and Western Uganda. In Ethiopia, the focus was on Debre Zeit, Tigray, and Gondar and surrounding livestock communities. The project's objective was to increase awareness of transboundary animal diseases to facilitate reporting to local veterinary authorities, supporting animal health and animal source food offtake through improving surveillance for more effective disease control. By recognizing reporting and responding to diseases, producers will improve livestock numbers and ultimately animal source food supplies at the household level. The project's activities included point-of-care disease diagnosis and reporting programs, which were extended from work in Iganga, Eastern Uganda, to Arua, West Nile, and then to Adjumani. Farmer-to-Farmer volunteers worked to improve diagnostic and surveillance capacity for transboundary disease through demonstrating best practices, providing diagnostic training to central laboratory staff, and co-training Ugandan producers and other actors in the value chain to identify transboundary diseases. The project's impact extended over the district, with approximately 350,000 people benefiting from the work. The project was performed in cooperation with NARO and local District Medical and Veterinary Officers as part of a broader surveillance program involving ILRI, USDA, Dairy Quality, DeLaval, and Ellie Laboratories. Ellie Laboratories donated an estimated $85,000 USD in reagents and equipment for brucellosis testing, while Dairy Quality and DeLaval donated approximately $15,000 in reagents and equipment. The project's leadership included Kellie Curtis, Alex Baker, and Michael Graham, who provided material and technical support for the project. Festus Samah, a Liberian student attending Makerere University, also participated in the work along with VWB volunteers.