Pre-appraisal mission of the panafrican rinderpest campaign.pdf

Rinderpest is a contagious viral disease of large ruminants, both domestic and wild, which is frequently fatal. No curative treatment exists but prophylaxis based on vaccination and quarantine allows it to be controlled and then eradicated. A campaign of vaccination before 1976 considerably reduced its incidence in Africa. However, the disease remained endemic in.East Africa and showed epizootic resurgences in West Africa at the end of the 1970s. The idea of eradicating the disease by a co-ordinated pan-African campaign was born at the beginning of the 1980s. The PARC programme was conceived with this specific objective as well as the improvement of the services provided to the livestock farmers and the pan-African coordination of animal healthcare. Since 1986 it has been financed by the European Union (EU) and consists of two parts : the first part is support to the co-ordination by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) through its specialist organisation, IBAR ; the second part is a group of national components which have been negotiated on a case by case basis with the different countries. The Co-ordination Unit (CU) is based at Nairobi at the headquarters of IBAR. It is responsible for the co-ordination of the group of components and for tasks of common interest whose need has been identified either in the course of operations or by the only global evaluation of the programme to date, in 1990. In total 35 countries have been involved during the different phases of the programme and 13 national components are still running. Beside the organisation of mass vaccination programmes and the means which are linked to it, the programme is clearly conceived as a tool for policy reform, seeking to have implemented by the various Governments measures which will ensure a better financial foundation for the services provided to livestock farmers. To prepare and follow up these national components the CU systematically practices a dialogue approach with the countries, based on their previous political commitment obtained within the framework of the OAU and complemented by sub-regional annual information sharing meetings.