A Path to Prosperity New Directions for African Livestock

Calls for the recognition and use of paravets
including CAHWs are unlikely to die away whilst a
gap in veterinary service delivery and disease
surveillance remains across large areas of rural
Africa.
Most contributors agreed that World Organisation
for Animal Health (OIE) guidance on how paravets
should operate was useful and appropriate 2 .
The Terrestrial Animal Health Code is quite clear
that it is the responsibility of the Veterinary Statutory
Body, normally termed the Veterinary Council or
Veterinary Board, of each country to register/licence
veterinarians and veterinary para-professionals.
E-discussion correspondents called for effective
supervision and follow up, improved trust and
flexible legislation to govern the use of veterinary
para-professionals, including Community Animal
Health Workers (CAHW).
The OIE advised that it has been developing a basic
standard covering veterinary legislation in OIE
Member Countries. This move has been in response,
at least in part, to requests from some
African countries.
Continual Professional Development [CPD] of both
vets and paravets was suggested as one way to
ensure continual supervision of veterinary
para-professionals, cascading down to the basic
levels such as CAHWs. It was suggested that those
vets or paravets who do not carry out the CPD would
be penalised through “loss of registration / licence to
deliver services”.
E-discussion correspondents put forward
interventions for consideration within any plan to
enhance the quality, impact and sustainability
of veterinary services A . Most participants felt the
OIE PVS mechanism, the new Interafrican Bureau of
Animal Resources [AU/IBAR] veterinary governance
project and IBAR’s strategy for livestock development
in Africa were key opportunities to build upon.
As advocated in the Impetus Strategy Paper, the OIE
PVS Pathway received particular support as a
programme for the sustainable improvement of a
country's Veterinary Services and their compliance
with OIE standards. It was noted that PVS remains
an important foundation for improving animal
health, public health and compliance with sanitary
and phyto-sanitary standards, at the national,
regional and international levels.
2 http://www.oie.int/international-standard-setting/terrestrial-code/
It was observed, in line with the findings of the ISP,
that whilst drug regulation had been harmonised
and improved in some regions, it is not enforced and
therefore inadequate. Contributors confirmed that
drug acquisition remains largely informal and the
quality of drugs continues to fall. Various solutions
ranging from training drug vendors, to building
branded franchise enterprises (Sidai Africa Ltd) and
ensuring drug registration authorities have an
incentive to change the way they do business,
were put forward.
It was pointed out that the ISP talks of ‘low quality
generic’ drugs when it would be more accurate to
talk about the quality of generic medicines,
counterfeit medicines and brand name medicines.
Fake medicines by definition are not even medicines.
In response to a question about how to control
neglected zoonoses, participants commented that
effective control requires more than improved
education and infrastructure. Partnerships with
other sectors, particularly human health, but also
agriculture, environment, education, local
administrations, will be necessary to contain and
effectively control zoonotic and food borne diseases
that mainly affect the poor. Complimentary
biosecurity measures on farms, livestock markets,
slaughtering facilities and the control of livestock
movement along with surveillance and vaccination
programmes were also advocated.
3 Feeding Africa’s Ruminants for food
security and prosperity
The Impetus Strategy Paper (ISP) advocated the
need for Sub Saharan Africa to maximise its use of
human inedible feeds and optimise its use of crop
by-products to improve ruminant nutrition. Africa
has relatively abundant supplies of cereal residues
such as straw and stover. Correspondence on the
topic confirmed that ruminant nutrition is a problem
in SSA. The link between health and nutrition was
made by several people. Participants observed that
concentrate feeds on sale in the market place
commonly do not contain the nutrients advertised.
Furthermore pasture available for extensively grazed
stock is diminishing due to encroachment of crop
production into grazing areas. Pastoralist
communities are particularly affected by restricted
access to their traditional grazing lands. As it is
extremely difficult to reseed or improve pastures in
dryland areas they face difficult choices about
their future viability. The idea of fodder banks was
put forward as one possible solution.
The Impetus Strategy Paper I Page 80