Diseases of livestock in the Pacific Islands region: Setting priorities for food animal biosecurity.

Diseases of livestock in the Pacific Islands region: Setting priorities for food animal biosecurity. Acta Trop. 2015 Jan 5;143C:66-76 Authors: Brioudes A, Warner J, Hedlefs R, Gummow B Abstract Most Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) have developing economies and face a critical shortage of veterinarians with limited financial resources allocated to their animal disease surveillance programmes. Thus, animal health authorities have to set priorities for better focusing their scarce resources. The main objective of this study was to identify animal diseases perceived to be of importance by decision makers within selected PICTs, at the regional and national levels, to ensure better targeting of animal health resources. A second objective was to investigate whether the targeted surveillance programmes resulting from this rationalized approach would also benefit the local communities engaged in livestock production. A multi-criteria prioritization process was developed, involving local experts, to score and rank 132 animal diseases based on their priority at the regional and national levels for four PICTs: Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, which form part of a regional Food Animal Biosecurity Network. In parallel interviews with farmers and field animal health and production workers were conducted to assess their perception of animal diseases. The list of the top-twenty ranked diseases for the Pacific Isl...
Source: Acta Tropica - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Tags: Acta Trop Source Type: research