OIE Focal Points for veterinary products meeting in Lome, Togo look into the quality of veterinary products and autogenous vaccines as part of the alternatives to antimicrobials.

The OIE has just completed the sixth in a series of training courses for OIE focal points for veterinary medicinal products. The seminar was held in Lomé, the Togolese capital from 9 to 11 October 2019.

The seminar was held in the Togolese capital Lomé and was attended by national OIE Delegates and OIE Focal Points for veterinary medicinal products from 24 countries from French-speaking Africa, including Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Rep), the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia and the host country : Togo. The CEBEVIRHA was represented with a high level delegation, led by its Executive Secretary.

Besides OIE regional (Bamako, Nairobi) and head office staff (AMR and Veterinary Products Department, Paris) contributions were made by three OIE Reference Centres on veterinary products (ANSES France, EISMV Senegal, PANVAC Ethiopia), as well as a regional expert from the WAEMU (UEMOA).

The pharmaceutical industry was represented through its industry association “HealthforAnimals”.

The two “One Health” tripartite partners of the OIE were represented by WHO Geneva (by videolink), as well as the Regional Office of the FAO in Accra.

The opening ceremony took place at Hotel LéBénin and was officiated by Mr. Dindiogue Konlani, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal and Fisheries Productions of Togo, representing the Minister, who delivered an opening speech under wide national media attention, alongside Drs. Elisabeth Erlacher-Vindel (OIE) and Komla Daniel Batawui, OIE Delegate for Togo, Member of the OIE Council and Director of Livestock Services.

Most of the first day of the seminar was directed to a rapid overview on activities related to veterinary products covered in previous training sessions and during the last OIE Global Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco (2018). This enabled newly appointed Focal Points to be adequately informed on the OIE, the International Cooperation on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Veterinary Medicinal Products (VICH), the VICH Outreach Forum (VOF) and any other issues pertaining to veterinary products, including autogenous vaccines.

The subsequent sessions covered :

• Pharmacovigilance : how to set-up a simple, basic, system in each country;
• Poor quality and falsified veterinary products, including the possibility of developing a global surveillance system for these products based on the one of the WHO;
• Progress made , and updates on antiparasitic resistance;
• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and antimicrobial use (AMU) : the OIE presented the last three years’ results of the collection of data on antimicrobial agents for use in animals and the common errors encountered during the submission of annual reports.

On the sidelines of the seminar, a kiosk was organised to improve the knowledge and understanding of the focal points present in Lomé on the data collection and to discuss their particular situation.

The training course was funded by the OIE World Animal Health and Welfare Fund, through grants from the United Kingdom (Fleming Fund, UK-AID), with the logistical support of the Government of Togo.