By Paul Mc Adam

SOME 35 local and overseas veterinarians, administrators, observers and animal health specialists from the Caribbean Animal Health Network (CaribVet Network) and other organisations met on Thursday to strengthen their work.

The meeting was held at the Guyana Livestock and Development Authority’s (GLDA) boardroom, Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara and participants include representatives from the French Agricultural Research and International Cooperation Organisation (CIRAD), the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA) and the University of the West Indies (UWI).

Ministry of Agriculture Permanent Secretary, Delma Nedd, in her address to the workshop themed, ‘Building the future of CaribVet’, praised the work of the organisation in the Region.

She also said improvements in capacity-building in critical areas are important for CaribVet to continuously move forward.

These areas include training in disease recognition; laboratory safety and provision of testing materials; and assisting countries to identify diseases carried by ticks and the assessment of tick’s resistance to acaricides in the Caribbean.

There is also need for creation of an awareness toolkit in several languages for diseases such as avian influenza, leptospirosis and rabies, and more significantly, access to experts regionally and internationally, Nedd said.

CaribVET Coordinator, Dr. Jennifer Pradel, said the workshop sets the tone for the organisation’s work over the next five to 10 years.

Representatives from the aforementioned organisations hail from Guyana, Barbados, Italy, Cuba, USA, Guadeloupe, Dominican Republic and Montserrat.

The next meeting of the CaribVet strategy/steering committee takes place in Cuba later this year.