ISID-Africa strengthened One Health preparedness at SASVEPM 2026 through practical capacity building on transboundary animal diseases and research advancing the animal health AMR surveillance agenda.
ISID-Africa strengthened its engagement in veterinary epidemiology, One Health and infectious disease preparedness at the 23rd Annual Congress of the Southern African Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (SASVEPM), held at Sun City Resort, South Africa, from 19-21 August 2026. The Congress brought together veterinary epidemiologists, researchers, animal health professionals and partners under the theme “Veterinary Preventive Medicine for a Changing World: Southern Africa Leads – Where Disease Prevention Meets Innovation.”
Dr Mohamed Sirdar, Interim Director of ISID-Africa, represented the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID) through contributions spanning scientific leadership, research and capacity strengthening. Dr Sirdar also served on the SASVEPM Scientific Committee, contributing to the review and evaluation of scientific abstracts submitted to the Congress.
Strengthening Preparedness for Transboundary Animal Diseases
Dr Sirdar facilitated together with a consortium of experts from Zambia and Ireland, the two-day pre-congress workshop, “Improving Early Detection and Diagnosis for Foot-and-Mouth Disease and Other Transboundary Animal Diseases,” held on 17-18 August 2026 and funded by SADC EU EPA. The workshop focused on strengthening veterinary capacity for early detection, field investigation and diagnostic quality assurance, with Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) as the primary disease context and other priority transboundary animal diseases, including African swine fever and highly pathogenic avian influenza, incorporated into the programme.
The workshop adopted an applied approach connecting field epidemiology, laboratory diagnosis and outbreak response. Dr Sirdar led and co-facilitated technical sessions covering FMD epidemiology, clinical recognition and differential diagnosis, outbreak investigation frameworks, and field sampling and biosafety.
The second day extended this pathway from field detection to laboratory confirmation and surveillance action. Dr Sirdar contributed to sessions on sample management and integrity, interpretation of diagnostic results, and integration of diagnostic information into surveillance systems and effective communication. Practical exercises and scenario-based discussions enabled participants to apply these concepts across the detection-to-decision continuum.
The workshop reinforced a central preparedness principle: effective outbreak response requires strong connections between clinical recognition, epidemiological investigation, appropriate sampling, reliable diagnostics, interpretation, communication and timely action. The approach also emphasized that outbreak investigation should transform an initial disease signal into actionable epidemiological intelligence.
Advancing the Animal Health AMR Surveillance Agenda
The Congress scientific programme featured Dr Sirdar’s oral presentation, “The missing half of AMR surveillance: why animal health needs its own priority pathogen list?”, co-authored with Professor Bashir Salim of King Faisal University.
The presentation highlighted an important gap in the global antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance architecture. The World Health Organization has established a Bacterial Priority Pathogens List to guide human-sector surveillance and research, yet a comparable harmonized priority framework remains lacking for animal health. This gap limits cross-sector comparability weakens One Health data integration and constrains evidence-based policymaking.
The research proposed a Priority Bacterial Pathogen List for Animal Health (PBPL-AH) as a science-based framework for strengthening veterinary AMR surveillance.
The proposed PBPL-AH could support greater alignment between animal and human health surveillance priorities, improve AMR data harmonization and strengthen antimicrobial stewardship within a One Health framework. The work also reinforces the need to ensure that animal health is adequately represented within national, regional and global AMR surveillance systems.
Building Stronger One Health Connections Across Africa
ISID-Africa’s engagement at SASVEPM 2026 reflects its broader commitment to strengthening infectious disease surveillance, epidemic intelligence, research, workforce capacity and One Health collaboration across Africa. ISID-Africa’s programme areas connect surveillance and monitoring, research and development, One Health, education and capacity strengthening, evidence generation and multi-sector partnerships.
The SASVEPM engagement demonstrated the value of combining scientific evidence with practical capacity strengthening to address infectious disease threats at the human-animal-environment interface. Veterinary epidemiology and animal health remain essential components of broader infectious disease preparedness, particularly as countries respond to transboundary diseases, antimicrobial resistance and emerging zoonotic threats.
ISID-Africa continues to provide a platform for African expertise, regional priorities and locally generated evidence to contribute to stronger infectious disease preparedness and response across Africa and globally.