Abstract:
There have been no surveys of the cattle population
for brucellosis in the Pacific Island Countries and Territories
(PICTs) for more than 15 years. This study used disease surveillance
as a capacity building training tool and to examine
some of the constraints that impede surveillance in PICTs. The
study also developed and implemented a series of surveys for
detecting antibodies to B. abortus in cattle in Fiji, Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands contributing to OIE
requirements. The findings indicated lack of funds, lack of
technical capacity, shortage of veterinarians, high turnover of
in-country officials and lack of awareness on the impacts of
animal diseases on public health that were constraining active
disease surveillance. During the development and implementation
of the surveys, constraints highlighted were outdated
census data on farm numbers and cattle population, lack of
funds for mobilisation of officials to carry out the surveys,
lack of equipment for collecting and processing samples, lack
of staff knowledge on blood sampling, geographical difficulties
and security in accessing farms. Some of the reasons why
these were constraints are discussed with likely solutions presented.
The detection surveys had the objectives of building
capacity for the country officials and demonstrating freedom
from brucellosis in cattle for PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. PNG, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands all demonstrated
freedom from bovine brucellosis in the areas surveyed
using the indirect ELISA test. Fiji had an outbreak of brucellosis,
and the objective was to determine its distribution and
prevalence on untested farms. The Muaniweni district surveyed
during the training had a 95 % confidence interval for
true prevalence between 1.66 and 5.45 %. The study showed
that active disease surveillance could be used as a tool for
training officials thus, improves surveillance capacity in resource
poor countries.
