Stakeholders in Nigeria’s livestock sector have called for the integration of private veterinary laboratories into the country’s animal disease surveillance system to strengthen disease detection, improve reporting, and enhance preparedness for disease outbreaks.
The call was made on Thursday at a summit on the ‘Public-Private Laboratory Forum on Strengthening Poultry Disease Surveillance in Nigeria’ in Abuja.
Participants stressed the need for collaboration among federal, state, local government and private veterinary laboratories to improve surveillance data collection.
The Director of Infectious and Transboundary Animal Diseases at the National Veterinary Research Institute, Professor Clement Meseko, said effective disease surveillance could only be achieved through collaboration among all actors in the veterinary laboratory ecosystem.
‘It’s very interesting that at this time we are discussing the veterinary laboratory network, particularly with respect to how there can be collaboration between the government laboratories, the national laboratories, the state laboratories, and, more importantly, the private laboratory,’ he said.
Country Manager of the Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines Nigeria, GAVmed, Moses Arokoyo, identified poor reporting and fragmented data collection as major weaknesses in Nigeria’s animal disease surveillance system.
‘So what we have seen as a gap is the fact that there is no integration of data. We say that if an event is not recorded, it means it didn’t happen,’ he said.
Arokoyo said harmonising data from public and private laboratories would improve Nigeria’s capacity to predict and respond to disease outbreaks.
Also speaking, the President of the Veterinary Council of Nigeria, Matthew Adamu, called on the government to strengthen veterinary laboratory infrastructure at the state and local government levels.
‘We have the National Veterinary Science Institute involved as the top-most reference lab as far as this country is concerned. It is designated as a laboratory for some diseases by the World Organisation for Animal Health as a reference lab. However, we have a serious challenge at the sub-national level,’ he stated.
The Chief Veterinary Officer of Nigeria, Dr Samuel Anzaku, called for an urgent shift in attitude towards disease data reporting, warning that fragmentation and under-reporting are undermining Nigeria’s ability to control poultry diseases.
Anzaku, who was represented by Dr Adeniyi Adedoyin, recalled that the same issue was raised 3-4 years ago.
‘Why do we have teaching hospitals and different labs – public and private – generating data, and everybody keeps to their own data?’ he asked.
He noted that the human health and pharmacy sectors have already harmonised their surveillance systems and are moving faster, while the veterinary sector is lagging.
Dr Onallo Akpa, Director General of the Poultry Association of Nigeria(PAN), called for increased investment in research and laboratory capacity to tackle Newcastle Disease and other endemic poultry diseases that continue to threaten Nigeria’s livestock.
The Director General of PAN, therefore, tasked participants to use the two-day deliberations to identify ‘missing gaps’ and develop strategies to reduce the endemic nature of poultry diseases and their economic impact.