| dc.description.abstract | Throughout most of the life of the OLS Livestock Programme, conventional wisdom held
that rinderpest eradication from southern Sudan was not possible without peace. It was
not until 1998, that the extent of the impact of the OLS Livestock Programme and the
true potential of community-based vaccination using heat-stable vaccine was widely
appreciated. As a result, the eradication of rinderpest from southern Sudan has not been a
stated objective until relatively recently.
There is now an emerging consensus among non-governmental organizations,
international agencies and the cattle owners of southern Sudan that the OLS Livestock
Programme has been highly successful in controlling rinderpest in the south Sudan. There
is also a realisation that the time for institutionalised vaccination has now passed.
Eradication, although not certain under the prevailing security conditions, is a realistic
aspiration.
The eradication phase of the programme should be implemented in a consultative manner
to insure that organisations and communities involved continue to share in the ownership
of the undertaking. Ownership of the eradication strategy by all partners is essential to its
success. Dialogue is required between the stakeholders to design and adopt a disease
surveillance strategy and identify time-bound vaccination targets.
Information from livestock owners and organisations on the ground suggest that the
cessation of vaccination and intensification of surveillance in areas West of the Nile is an
appropriate and prudent next step. The situation East of the Nile is less clear. Historically,
this area has not benefited from the same levels of activity as the West and communitybased infrastructure is much less developed. This has primarily resulted from problems of
intermittent access and a consequent decision to focus resources West of the Nile as part
of a phased programme.
At the present time, the Sobat Basin is difficult to access for either vaccination or
surveillance. At the time of writing, OLS has indefinitely suspended all NGO activities in
large areas of the Sobat Basin.
Further to the south, the largest communities in the region, the Murle and Toposa, have
only recently been accessed to any significant degree. A shortage of information is not
equivalent to the absence of disease. Building disease surveillance capacity, and
conducting participatory disease searches should be the main priorities. Time-bound
vaccination should continue within the Murle and surrounding communities, when and
where it can be properly applied. In this manner, at the end of the 2001-02 dry season,
sufficient data will be in hand to support an informed decision regarding the cessation of
vaccination East of the Nile. | |
