The Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Tuesday, commenced training of 80 private and public health workers in Yobe.
Dr Yusuf Maina, Director, Veterinary Services, Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Yobe, said the programme was being sponsored by the World Bank through the Ministry.
Maina said that the aim of the programme was to change the way disease outbreaks were reported from analogue to digital for effective management and control.
According to him, the training is nationwide. Today is Yobe’s turn. We have divided the training into two segments because of the volume of participants.
“Today we are doing for the Area Officers, veterinaries who are in charge of local government areas and then private practitioners, who operate private veterinary services.
The training for other category of participants, the surveillance agents, who are closer to people in the rural communities might be carried out next week.
“After the training we will give them applications so that whenever they see anything reportable, they will just input, and the report will go direct to the central device for further action,” he said.
Maina said the programme would be dealing with emerging and re-emerging diseases, adding that 75 per cent of the emerging diseases come from the animals’ side.
“That is why WHO decided to take what is called one health. That is the human health, the animal health and the environmental health.
“Under this one health, we come together, we strategise together and fight diseases together,” he explained.
One of the participants, Dr Abdussalam Saleh, the Area Veterinary Officer, Nangere Local Government commended the organisers and described the training as timely.
Another participant, Dr Hauwa Daya, said the development would ease their work and make it effective.
