Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Cambodia on May 27 reported highlights of achievements made by WildHealthNet over the past three years, emphasising that “more than 100 wildlife mortality and morbidity events” have been recorded.
In a Facebook post, WCS Cambodia said that its Wildlife Health Program had recently conducted a meeting to share a selection of the activities and achievements of WildHealthNet, an initiative supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under the US Department of Defense, and “discuss opportunities for network partners to maintain wildlife health surveillance during this transition to ensure long-term sustainability of the network”.
“Since July 2019, over 100 wildlife mortality and morbidity events have been detected across the country and over 400 network participants have been trained,” it said.
The post listed other accomplishments as “the detection of African swine fever in wild boar, multi-sector One Health response to highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 outbreaks, and collaboration with the animal health department for a lumpy skin disease vaccination campaign in cattle to protect endangered wild ruminants”.
“WildHealthNet was initiated in late 2018 with the objective to support capacity building within government agencies to implement a Wildlife Health Surveillance Network in the Lower Mekong Region – Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam – in order to detect, monitor, and report especially dangerous pathogens in wildlife,” it added.
