For May 2019, AWH was contracted to (help) develop a risk-based FMD strategy plan for GAVS (Mongolian General Authority for Veterinary Services).

Mongolia has a official FMD control plan, annually endorsed by the OIE since 2016 while uncontrolled spread of FMD occurred in East and Central Mongolia in 2017 and 2018.

Uncontrolled, because control measures were applied with little understanding of the transmission routes of FMD virus. That is due to a lack of basic disease outbreak investigations and subsequent analysis. A recent sero-survey indicated that one in six herds sampled test two or more head of livestock NSP-Ab sero-positive in East and Central Mongolia.

In May 2019, AHW was contracted to develop a risk-based FMD strategy plan. Valuable collaboration was established with an instantly-formed FMD Working Group. Reflecting that most herders have a mixed livestock population, the assignment was expanded to developing an integrated TAD control strategy for FMD and PPR.

The integrated TAD control provides a number of ready-to-use surveillance activities to enhance herders, private vets and soum epidemiologists to forward disease occurrence informaton. Concurrently, the proposed strategy indicates how external funds (World Bank loan) may be used to strengthen veterinary services in Mongolia.