B\u00ff George Mgbeleke
\nStakeholders in Nigeria\u2019s livestock sector have called for the integration of private veterinary laboratories into the national surveillance system to improve data collection and early detection.<\/p>\n
They identified poor reporting and fragmented data as major threats to animal disease control in the country.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a stakeholders\u2019 meeting on strengthening Nigeria\u2019s veterinary laboratory network in Abuja, the participants said collaboration among federal, state, local government and private laboratories was critical to building a robust surveillance system.<\/p>\n
Director of Infectious and Transboundary Animal Diseases at NVRI, Professor Clement Meseko, said no single institution can achieve effective surveillance alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very interesting that we are discussing veterinary laboratory network, particularly collaboration between government laboratories, national laboratories, state laboratories, and more importantly, the private laboratory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meseko explained that private labs are closer to farmers and can quickly collect samples and report suspected outbreaks. <\/p>\n
\u201cFor instance, if there is an indication of an infectious disease in a poultry farm, the private lab is closer and can send samples to state labs before it gets to the national reference lab,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meseko urged government to strengthen and incentivise private laboratories to encourage participation, saying \u201cthere will be benefit to them in the number of diseases they analyse, and benefit to government because we will have access to wider data.\u201d <\/p>\n
Country Manager of GALVmed Nigeria, Moses Arokoyo, said the biggest gap in the system is lack of data integration.
\n\u201cSo what we have seen as a gap is the fact that there is no integration of data. If an event is not recorded, it means it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Arokoyo said harmonising data from public and private labs would help Nigeria identify patterns and prepare for outbreaks. <\/p>\n
\u201cOutbreaks don\u2019t just happen. There is a pattern over time. Once that pattern is established, we are better prepared,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
He said GALVmed is supporting the effort through the National Animal Disease Information Service, NADIS.
\n\u201cThe summary is GALVmed wants Nigeria to have robust data. The missing link is reporting. The reporting system is very poor,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
President of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria, Matthew Adamu, called for investment in laboratory infrastructure at state and local government levels.
\n\u201cWe need the veterinary teaching hospitals to be well equipped. We want the states\u2019 laboratories to be well equipped. Personnel should be trained and retrained,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Chief Veterinary Officer of Nigeria, Dr. Samuel Anzaku, represented by Dr. Adeniyi Adedoyin, said under-reporting has persisted for 10 years despite the Animal Disease Control Act. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do we have teaching hospitals and different labs generating data, and everybody keeps to their own data? Without a paradigm shift, we will not achieve results,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Director General of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, Dr. Onallo Akpa, also called for more investment in research to tackle Newcastle Disease and other endemic poultry diseases.<\/p>\n
Stakeholders concluded that an integrated network of public and private labs would improve surveillance, support early detection and strengthen Nigeria\u2019s livestock health system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
B\u00ff George Mgbeleke Stakeholders in Nigeria\u2019s livestock sector have called for the integration of private veterinary laboratories into the national surveillance system to improve data collection and early detection. They identified poor reporting and fragmented data as major threats to animal disease control in the country. Speaking at a stakeholders\u2019 meeting on strengthening Nigeria\u2019s veterinary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16383"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16385,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16383\/revisions\/16385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}