Establishment of the network and the surveillance for wildlife health in Albania

Abstract

Wildlife health surveillance is important in conservation of the wild species but also to identify the wild animal reservoirs of pathogens affecting human and domestic animals. The Wildlife Health Surveillance plays an important role in ensuring veterinary public health and human health and contributes to safe animal-human-ecosystems interfaces. The Albanian network for wildlife health surveillance was established in 2009. The building of a surveillance network and system for wildlife health began with the support of World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument of the European Commission (EU TAIEX Programme, Ministry of Education of Albania and World Bank. Training and staff preparation for wildlife health surveillance was provided. In addition, a research laboratory for surveillance of some important wildlife disease was built. The surveillance for rabies in wild carnivores, HPAI in wild birds, the hantaviruses in rodents and tularaemia in wild rabbits, which are also zoonoses, are some results of these endeavours in Albania. Albanian public veterinary health and public human health envisage improving the strategy for wildlife health surveillance under One Health approach in order to ensure veterinary health, public health and environmental health and to contribute to the OIE wildlife health information system as well.