Poultry Disease Management Agency
At the PDMA September was a very busy month dedicated to setting up systems that will improve the communication between the agency and its various stakeholders. The work will continue through October to ensure that the platforms are switched-on before year-end.
Communication platforms
The PDMA website is up and running and most of the information that the agency holds can be accessed through the website. The website will overtime become a very important communication tool and also a source of very useful and needed information. The web address is www.poultrydiseases.co.za. Please do visit the site and engage with the agency.
In addition to this we have looked at ways of improving the way information is collected from the producers and the veterinarians. To this effect, a versatile application has been developed which will allow us to collect various types of information. As a start, we have looked at reporting of diseases, collecting the farm locations and also tracking the infectious bronchitis strains. The information gathered on the application will be used to feed reports back to the producers. The information will also enable us to issue disease outbreak warnings so that the farmers can be more vigilant.
Searchable registered products database
The development of this tool has seen some energy injection in the last month or two. The programme has now been developed, data entry done on the products we received from the manufacturers. The next stage is for the manufacturers to check the validity of the information before the site is switched-on. As soon as the manufacturer are satisfied with the information as per the approved package inserts, the site will go live and will be accessible through the PDMA website.
State Vets Communication
In order to keep up with the state vet training initiative, 2 contact sessions have been scheduled. The first one is scheduled for the 11th October 2013, where Avian Influenza cases will be covered. The second one for 15th November 2013 and Salmonella will be discussed in great details. The sessions are conducted in collaboration with the Avimune veterinarians. The goal is to get a good understanding of the controlled diseases and how each disease should be handled by both the state and the industry. This will allow for better coordination and standardisation of the responses to outbreak situations.
The agency has also issued a call for nominations of provincial state vets who will undergo training at Onderstepoort beginning of 2014. The response has been slow but we are confident that the target number of 20 state vets will be reached. It is also a target of ours to ensure that each province has at least 2 representatives.
The communication between the PDMA and DAFF has improved quite significantly over the year and it is invisaged tjhat this will be strengthened by the agreements that are in draft and will be signed within the month of October.
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