The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has launched a twinning project with Italy, supported by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The Ministry said that the twinning project between the Animal Resources Risk Assessment Division and the Italian IZSAM lasts for up to 3 years. The Ministry also pointed out that the project aims to improve the skills of the Ministry's staff for implementation of the proper methods of epidemiological studies and risk assessment of animal health, public health, and food safety, including GIS applications, remote sensing data analysis and infectious diseases modeling, assessing the epidemiological situation of endemic infectious diseases in the Kingdom, evaluating the quarantine measures undertaken to reduce the risk of animal diseases.
The project also aims to analyze the global epidemiological situation and to make decisions on the resulting risks, implement data collection and analysis systems and monitoring and early warning systems to respond to animal diseases including zoonotic diseases and vector-borne diseases, publish the results through periodic reports and publications, design and develop animal identification tracking systems.
The main outputs of the project included developing a medium-term strategic plan for the development of the competencies of veterinary personnel working in animal disease control centers, within the outputs of the Animal Disease Investigation and Control Program in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030.
It is worth noting that IZSAM was founded in 1941, a public institution belonging to the Italian National Health System, OIE Collaborating Centre for Veterinary Training, Epidemiology, Food Safety and Animal Welfare and a National Reference Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis that provides scientific and technical support on issues of public health, animal health and welfare, food hygiene and food safety.