Establishing an epidemiosurveillance centre in a resource-constrained setting: A Zambian experience

Introduction Livestock diseases in most developing countries are often widely distributed. The wide distribution of diseases often renders whole countries ineligible to participate in international trade of meat and meat products 1. These trade restrictions serve as a continuous primary source of revenue loss. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) now promotes establishment of disease free zones to lessen the impact of trade restrictions. These “islands” of disease freedom not only serve as a first step in total disease freedom, but for many countries they also serve as a beacon of hope to ever returning to international trade. The selection of a region within a country to be designated as a disease free zone is likely to be based more on the fact that a particular region is yet to experience cases of a given disease than it is on the nation’s Veterinary department ability to keep the region disease free. As such, geographical regions that seem to have inherent protection against disease incursions usually due to geospatial features such as mountains, rivers, remoteness etc. serve as the best candidates for creation of disease free zones. Because the process of disease free zone creation is slow, it is important to ensure that disease surveillance is these regions is enhanced so that disease control authorities may serve as agile responders to disease incursions. This current presentation outlines the creation of a Provincial Epidemiological and Information Centre (PEIC) in Zambia’s Luapula province. This is only the second epidemiosurveillance centre in the country. Luapula province in the northern part of Zambia being one of only 3 provinces out of a total of 10 provinces that are free of theilleriosis in Zambia 2 has the potential of being Zambia’s largest disease free zone. The challenges as well as lessons learnt from setting up this epidemiosurveillance centre are presented