Turkmenistan improves the surveillance and control of a widespread disease – brucellosis

A workshop on the surveillance and control of brucellosis took place in Ashgabat from 20 to 24 October. It was led by experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) within the framework of the regional project “Pandemic preparedness and response under the One Health approach in Central Asia”. 

Caused by the Brucella bacteria, brucellosis is an infectious zoonotic disease that spreads from animals to humans through contact with infected animals and animal products, such as unpasteurized milk. In Turkmenistan, it is prevalent in cattle, small ruminants and camels. 

Brucellosis remains a serious public health concern in the country, despite long-standing efforts to eliminate the disease through vaccination, testing and culling under the national brucellosis control programme led by the State Veterinary Service, whose staff carry out routine testing across Turkmenistan’s five provinces and in numerous districts.

The five-day workshop, which included a field visit to a dairy cattle farm in the Ashgabat region, laboratory training and tabletop simulation exercises (SimEx), covered topics ranging from country status evaluation, outbreak investigation, risk assessment and management to diagnosis, control and prevention, the One Health concept and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

“As a transboundary, zoonotic disease, brucellosis poses a major threat to animal and human health, impacting the livelihoods of vulnerable rural populations in particular,” said Eran Raizman, FAO Senior Animal Health and Production Officer. “This is why it is considered a high priority disease in Turkmenistan and all of Central Asia.”

Key findings and recommendations

Nearly 40 participants took part in the workshop, which brought together veterinarians from Turkmenistan’s provinces and districts, public veterinary laboratories personnel and representatives from ministries and agencies responsible, among other, for implementing the One Health approach. 

In fact, one of the recommendations made by Svetlana Bardenstein and Nadav Galon, the brucellosis specialists from Israel conducting the trainings was that a dedicated working group should be established as part of Turkmenistan’s brucellosis control programme, with the active involvement of staff from the relevant ministries and veterinary services as well as other stakeholders.

Bardenstein and Galon were of the opinion that a reevaluation of the country’s brucellosis epidemiological situation was urgently needed. This would involve updating the census of susceptible animal populations – by type, size, production system, ownership and location – and identifying the main risk factors for disease introduction and spread. 

The existing national vaccination protocol and vaccine production practices need to be reassessed to ensure safety, purity and effectiveness, according to the experts. Future vaccination strategies should be risk-based, aligned with updated epidemiological data and consistently applied to public and private herds. 

Crucially, test and cull control should include fair compensation to encourage farmer participation and disease reporting. Collaboration between the public and private sectors, risk communication to all actors and consumers, and continued capacity building are also essential for effective brucellosis control.

About the project

The workshop organized by FAO in Turkmenistan forms part of a multicountry project for Central Asia titled “Pandemic preparedness and response through a One Health approach in Europe and Central Asia,” supported by the Pandemic Fund. Jointly implemented by FAO, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, the project aims to coordinate One Health efforts at the national and regional levels, helping countries in Central Asia reduce the health and socioeconomic impacts of disease outbreaks and pandemics.