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Career Development

Using diagnostic kits to detect major animal diseases in Senegal.
Epizootic diseases cause high mortality rates in livestock, jeopardize both the quality and quantity of livestock products and discourage private investment in the sector. Systems to diagnose and monitor the major infectious diseases that affect livestock are needed. Rapid diagnostic kits are more sensitive, accurate and inexpensive than traditional tests such as c ELISA.
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RAF5054: Improvement of Livestock Productivity through an Integrated Application of Technologies.
Improvement of livestock production has been undertaken in many African countries with support from local funds as well as from external donors. Although Artificial Insemination (AI) has been applied for cattle breeding for a long time in Africa as a means of accelerated genetic improvement of the indigenous stock, the overall productivity of this sector has continued to be low. Some of the factors that contribute to this include inadequate management practices, poor nutrition, occurrence of reproductive disorders, systemic diseases and parasites. Read more »

Questionnaire for Participants in APHS Projects (CRP and TC), Meetings, Workshops, Fellowships, Scientific Visits and Training Courses. [Word]
An evaluation of the Animal Production and Health subprogramme is currently being performed. In order to assist us in this process we would appreciate your cooperation in filling out the attached questionnaire and return it by mail, facsimile or e-mail:
Animal Production and Health Section
Joint FAO/IAEA Programme of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture,
Vienna International Centre, Wagramer Strasse 5, P.O. Box 100,
A-1400 Vienna, Austria;
Fax (43-1) 26007 26052, E-mail: aph-webcontact@iaea.org

Sustained support for disease eradication pays dividends.
The sustained support of the FAO Global Rinderpest campaign through the FAO/IAEA Joint Division expertise and TC projects has resulted in OIE recognition of freedom from infection by rinderpest of Mongolia and provisional freedom for Yemen .
The success of sustained capacity building and training of staff is illustrated well in Mongolia where recent cases of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) were diagnosed and reported very rapidly to the OIE as a result of ELISA and PCR molecular technologies supplied.

Key role in improving kits.
The Joint FAO/IAEA Division of the IAEA in Vienna, Austria, has a long experience in helping to develop and validate assays and has provided strong support in developing OIE norms Scientific landmark OIE guidelines for validation of tests have been developed through cooperation with the Joint FAO/IAEA Division. The guidelines concentrate on identifying the fitness for purpose of any test and demand justification of the criteria used to validate such tests.