Agriculture Ministry, FAO plan animal disease drill for July

Trinidad and To­ba­go's readi­ness to re­spond to an an­i­mal dis­ease out­break will be test­ed next month dur­ing a sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cise or­gan­ised by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries and the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions (FAO).

The ex­er­cise forms part of a wider col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the Min­istry and the FAO to strength­en the coun­try's abil­i­ty to pre­vent, de­tect and re­spond to live­stock dis­eases, which can pose sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic health risks and threat­en food pro­duc­tion.

Ahead of the ex­er­cise, the Min­istry has re­ceived spe­cialised vet­eri­nary equip­ment from the FAO un­der a tech­ni­cal co­op­er­a­tion project ti­tled An­i­mal Dis­ease Out­break Re­sponse in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The equip­ment in­cludes di­ag­nos­tic and lab­o­ra­to­ry sup­plies, dis­in­fec­tants, per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment, es­sen­tial con­sum­ables and field emer­gency re­sponse kits. The Min­istry said the items will strength­en dis­ease sur­veil­lance, im­prove pre­pared­ness and en­able faster re­spons­es to an­i­mal health emer­gen­cies.

FAO rep­re­sen­ta­tive (ad in­ter­im) Dr Gillian Smith pre­sent­ed the equip­ment to Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Min­is­ter Sen­a­tor Ravi Rati­ram at the Min­istry's head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas on Wednes­day.

"This han­dover rep­re­sents a strate­gic in­vest­ment in a more re­silient na­tion­al an­i­mal health sys­tem; en­hanced dis­ease emer­gency re­sponse, sur­veil­lance, and aware­ness; and a more ro­bust net­work that sup­ports and en­gages farm­ers," Dr Smith said.

"These sup­plies will di­rect­ly en­hance the op­er­a­tional ca­pac­i­ty of vet­eri­nary ser­vices, en­abling more ef­fec­tive dis­ease mon­i­tor­ing and im­proved re­sponse readi­ness, to the ben­e­fit of stake­hold­ers across the agri­cul­tur­al val­ue chain."

Rati­ram said in­vest­ments in an­i­mal health in­fra­struc­ture re­main a pri­or­i­ty as Gov­ern­ment works to build a mod­ern and re­silient agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

"As we work to­ward build­ing a mod­ern, re­silient and pro­duc­tive agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor, in­vest­ments in an­i­mal health in­fra­struc­ture re­main a pri­or­i­ty. Ef­fec­tive vet­eri­nary ser­vices and ro­bust dis­ease sur­veil­lance sys­tems are es­sen­tial for safe­guard­ing live­stock pop­u­la­tions, pro­tect­ing farm­ers' liveli­hoods, main­tain­ing con­sumer con­fi­dence, and strength­en­ing our food se­cu­ri­ty agen­da. We are grate­ful to the FAO for its con­tin­ued part­ner­ship and sup­port in ad­vanc­ing these ob­jec­tives," he said.

The Min­istry said the Ju­ly sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cise will test the coun­try's readi­ness and ca­pac­i­ty to man­age an an­i­mal dis­ease out­break while help­ing strength­en co­or­di­na­tion among agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for emer­gency re­sponse.