Rio de Janeiro, September 19, 2024 (PANAFTOSA/VPH-PAHO/WHO) - From October 17 to 19, PANAFTOSA hosted the Programa Regional de Educación Sistemática de Servicios Veterinarios (ProgRESSVet) workshop at its facilities, an innovative educational initiative aimed at enhancing and strengthening the capacity of veterinary services across the region.
The training is part of the virtual course, "Regional Systematic Education Program for Veterinary Services in Latin America 2024: Surveillance of Cross-Border Diseases," which is being developed throughout this year. A total of 11 professionals from veterinary services in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela participated in the workshop. Professionals from the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) at the University of Minnesota (USA) and PANAFTOSA, along with Professor Andrés Perez, and Drs. Sol Perez and Sergio Duffy, were responsible for coordinating and delivering the course.
During the workshop, various concepts were addressed to design and evaluate the animal health surveillance systems of the countries, focusing on diseases such as avian influenza, foot-and-mouth disease, and African and classical swine fever. Over the three days, participants also developed a work plan to carry out a final project aimed at strengthening some component of animal health surveillance in their respective countries.
The training has been supported by resources from the PROTECT project, the pandemic fund, which financed the participation of professionals from several countries.
For the development of the program, CAHFS has worked closely with PANAFTOSA/VPH-PAHO/WHO and the International Regional Organization for Agricultural Health (OIRSA) to cover the most relevant aspects of the surveillance conducted by official veterinary services. This training is being conducted simultaneously in 15 countries across Latin America.
ProgRESSVet was initially the result of a collaborative effort between CAHFS at the University of Minnesota and the Buenos Aires Center for Veterinary Services Training (CEBASEV). Both centers are designated by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) as collaborators for training veterinary services in the Americas and have been organized and coordinated by CAHFS since 2016.
