Overview and Objectives

In common with other regions in Africa, Uganda is facing an unprecedented crisis in tick and tick-borne disease control. Changing climatic conditions, herd system management and the prolific, unregulated usage of acaracides have led to a continuously growing level of acaricide resistance in tick populations.

The MoTAR (Monitoring of Ticks and Acaracide Resistance) project aims to provide Uganda with an effective means of managing these, key constraints in sustainable livestock production: tick acaracide resistance (TAR) and the associated burden of tick-borne diseases (TBDs). This will be achieved by the development of an online mapping tool showing relevant distribution patterns of ticks and acaracide resistance and by the establishment of a network of laboratories capable of delivering the necessary diagnostic and testing services for TAR/TBD on an ongoing, sustainable basis. The resultant data will be used to track TAR in real time to inform policy and national interventions. Using this Ugandan model as a template, similar capabilities across the Eastern and Central African region will be advocated.

Overview and Objectives

In the last few years, the northern hemisphere has seen a major evolution in poultry diseases with new variants of key viral pathogens identified, including avian influenza which also infects non-poultry species, and new infectious bursal disease isolates being found in chickens no longer protected by current vaccines. These pathogens are detected and new variants identified by an extensive laboratory network and associated disease surveillance systems which are supported and funded by industry and government agencies.

Given the emergence of these viral strains and spread of new poultry disease virus variants from the Middle East and North Africa into sub-Saharan Africa there is a clear need to track the epidemiology and impact of these agents in order to formulate and introduce applicable prevention strategies including through informing policy. However, the situation in sub-Saharan Africa is very different from that of the northern hemisphere. The surveillance and reporting of poultry diseases including Avian influenza is very low because in many cases the required systems of surveillance have not been built, laboratories don’t have the diagnostic equipment or skills to conduct tests, and there is a fragmented national and regional response to disease outbreaks.

This project, enhancing disease surveillance for African poultry (EDSAP), aims to tackle these obstacles by enhancing the capacity of commercial partners in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Nigeria.  Expanding private laboratories, will not only help to maintain current product standards, but also to support customers with rapid disease diagnosis, potential treatment and preventative actions. This will also result in the provision of much-needed accurate surveillance data to feed into national and regional poultry disease surveillance systems for decision-making on vaccine registrations, other disease preventative actions and antimicrobial resistance reduction.