OIE Eastern Africa echoes IGAD and FAO appeal for heightened surveillance for Rift Valley Fever (RVF) as heavy rainfalls persist

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) maintains a system for RVF forecasting based on precipitation and vegetation anomalies, among other environmental factors.

During the past months, in line with the weather predictions including the IGAD Climate Prediction and Application Center (ICPAC) forecast, rainfall was persistently above-average in most of the countries in Eastern Africa. The latest FAO RVF forecasting in May 2020 (as presented below-see picture) confirms that the risk of RVF occurrence in the region remains high both in animals and humans in the next coming months, either due to favorable to environmental conditions and/or through animal movement, and calls for urgent readiness to any potential RVF outbreak, in particular through One Health coordination.

OIE strongly supports the  recommendations of FAO and IGAD that :

• National Veterinary Authorities are to increase awareness about the disease, assess the current situation and the specific risk to the country regarding RVF, identify the actions to support the country to increase its resilience to RVF outbreaks;
• National Veterinary Authorities to get in touch with their public health counterparts to coordinate joint preparedness activities, especially in countries where there is no One-Health platform; to ensure a One Health and humanitarian approach to this threat.

All pictures © P. Bastiaensen (oie) 2019