Lodwar – November 26, 2025 (Public Communication and Media Relations)

The newly recruited veterinary technical officers and paraprofessionals in the Directorate of Veterinary Services have undertaken rigorous training on Kenya Bio-Surveillance System (KABs), which was introduced and progressively rolled out to counties four years ago.

In addition to this, they have also been taken through participatory epidemiological (PE) techniques and methods that will help them in engaging communities in matters related to animal health and production.

The week-long training aims at making officers effective in timely livestock diseases reporting for early detection, preparedness, prevention and appropriate response.

With support from Frontier Counties Development Council (FCDC) and collaboration with County Government, this training will lead to improved participatory livestock disease search, animal surveillance and reporting, thus strengthening the early warning system and response in Turkana.

Speaking during official opening of the training, Dr Ezekiel Etelej, Chief Officer for Livestock Development said, “since the roll out of the system, Turkana County has experienced improved uptake in reporting, thanks to partnership between the County Government, FCDC and other partners for widening our scope in disease reporting through training officers and Community Animal Disease Reporters on KABS and PE.”

Noting the emerging and re-emerging zoonotic diseases cause huge livestock mortalities, and impact negatively to the pastoralists, the CCO noted that it would be easy to detect early and respond timely using this electronic surveillance system. And for this, he insisted, is the reason for the training of veterinary technical officers.

Dr Benson Long’or, the County Director of Veterinary Services says,”As a county, we take pride in owning over 18 million livestock, and therefore we must protect them against diseases that threaten our main livelihood thus exposing the pastoral community to poverty and persistent acute malnutrition.”

Director Long’or further said, the e-surveillance system and its users that helped the Directorate generate evidence based data that led to vaccination and supportive treatment of over 1,300,000 livestock against priority notifiable diseases in the last one year.

Acknowledging the strategic partnership between FCDC and County Government, Dr Elim Limlim, Sector Forum for Agriculture and Livestock (SFAL) Coordinator, said besides supporting trainings in disease surveillance, FCDC has supported livestock vaccination activities, equipping and solarization of cold facility in Lokichar and the county veterinary investigative laboratory in Lodwar, thereby enhancing two county cold chains and diagnostic capacity.

Dr Erenius Nakadio and Dr Elia Lolem are the trainers in the ongoing training. Ayan Ismail of FCDC is also in attendance.