The Third Workshop of the Central Asian Animal Health Network (CAAHN) was held by three partner organisations: the Food and Agriculture Organization Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia (FAO REU), the Sub-regional Representation for Central Asia of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), in collaboration with the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization (WHO) on 8-9 June 2023 in Samarkand.
The purpose of CAAHN is to share information and experience, identify regional needs related to animal health, including zoonoses, and to address them in a cooperative manner to facilitate regional trade, contribute to the economic development of the region and reduce risks to human health from zoonotic diseases using the One Health approach. The role of CAAHN to serve as an umbrella for streamlining, coordinating, and avoiding duplication of the initiatives and projects implemented by international agencies and countries related to Animal Health and One Health in Central Asia was highlighted at the beginning of the event.
Representatives from the veterinary and public health authorities of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, and international agencies such as the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and USAID participated in the event.
Each country was represented by 3 participants from the State Veterinary Authority and by the epidemiology and laboratory focal points. It was decided to attract the national public health authorities to this network for future events.
Since it was the 3rd meeting the discussion was on the current state of play on key activities and priorities and the progress made since 1st and 2nd meetings. The first CAAHN meeting was held in 2019.
All participating International Organisations and Agencies reported on the regional activities within their mandate with a focus on the One Health approach and related activities.
Within broad Animal Health and One Health discussions, the focus was made on brucellosis. Participating countries highlighted it as an important challenge in the region in their presentations and a specific session was held dedicated to the needs of countries and the whole region in this aspect.
During the event, there was a session when the countries were divided according to their interest into 2 groups: Epidemiology and Laboratory Networks, and after that presented their results.
On the second day, there was a session on training needs on priority zoonoses in Central Asia
where FAO presented its Virtual Learning Centre (VLC), WOAH – Training Platform for the reinforcement of Veterinary Services worldwide, and WHO – Existing and forthcoming Operational Tools under the Tripartite Zoonoses Guide.
The last session was dedicated to the future activities and action plan 2023-2026 for this network, recommendations from this event, sharing of the responsibilities “Who will take which action and when?” and the next 4th CAAHN workshop: tentative objectives, location, and dates.
