Strategic public-private partnership between the County Government and livestock stakeholders has emboldened disease surveillance and reduced huge livestock deaths in Turkana,County Director for Veterinary Services Dr..Benson Long’or has said.
Speaking today in Lokichar,when he opened a two-day refresher training of Community Disease Reporters(CDRs),Director Long’or said that his Directorate will continue engaging stakeholders in collection,analysis and presentation of disease data to determine disease status, pattern and its distribution so as to inform timely responses.
He described the CDR structures as inevitable and essential in reporting livestock disease syndromes in a vast county like Turkana where challenges of infrastructure, lean staff, logistical constraints are enormous and briefed participants on progress of the Turkana animal health zero draft policy and bill that is before the County Assembly for legislation.
The trainees,drawn from all the 30 wards,will under this refresher training on major animal disease syndromes as well as be taken through mobile application tool (Plantvillage Nuru app)-Animal survey.
The objective of the training is to support the ongoing efforts of livestock disease surveillance within the county with focus on equipping the CDRs with basic knowledge on accurate, quality and evidence based information which can be easily analyzed, interpreted and presented for decision making and resource mobilization.
The two days training,with a 6-months piloting has been jointly organized by the County Veterinary Services Directorate and Plantvillage Nuru organization.
Plantvillage Nuru as an organization played a major role on locust surveillance (elocust3m app) which helped early detection of locust for its control. Now, they’ve come with an App for animal disease surveillance to inform early detection and response.
Plantvillage Nuru’s Veterinary officer Dr. Catherine Karungo said that the organization will continue using technology to engage more professionals and see how they can partner with the County Government to scale up disease reporting and enhance its control.
Turkana South Sub-County Administrator Esther Lokitoe challenged the community disease reporters to utilize the knowledge and help herders at their respective wards.