By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 27 Jul: A “Vaccinators Training Programme for Van Gujjar Community Members of Haridwar and Dehradun” was jointly organised here by One Health Support Unit of the Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying (DAHD), GoI, Chaudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Animal Health (CCSNIAH), Baghpat, and Animal Husbandry Department, Uttarakhand, under the One-Health pilot project of Union Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, today.
The programme was held as part of the pilot interventions of the One Health project in Uttarakhand and Karnataka states by DAHD with the financial support of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as the implementing partner.
One-Health is a multi-sectoral approach that takes into consideration human, animal and environment health and the interconnectivity and interdependence of these three elements. Van Gujjars are the nomadic tribes of Uttarakhand, living in the fringe areas of the forest and usually migrate during the summer seasons, therefore have swift and sustained interaction between the forests and civilisation. The huge buffalo population of the Van Gujjar community usually is at risk as a two-way carrier for the infectious (including zoonotic) diseases by living in close contact with the wild animals and the Van Gujjars. Addressing the awareness and requirement of Van Gujjar community for zoonotic diseases is important for achieving the ambitious goal of One Health in Uttarakhand. Therefore, to create awareness about vaccination and deworming and giving impetus for wider outreach to the State’s vaccination drive the training programmes were organised in Dehradun.
A total of 28 Van Gujjar Community Members of Dehradun District including Amanat Ali, Vice President, Van Gujjar Tribal Yuva Sangathan attended the training programme. Present were Dr Prem Kumar, Director Animal Husbandry, Uttarakhand; Dr Ajit Singh Yadav, Director, CCSNIAH, Baghpat; Dr Devendra Sharma, Joint Director & Nodal Officer, One Health (Uttarakhand); Dr Neeraj Singhal, Joint Director, Animal Husbandry Department, Uttarakhand; Dr Sandeep Kumar Singh, Joint Director, CCSNIAH; Dr Vikas Gupta, Assistant Director, CCSNIAH; and Dr Nihar Nalini Mohanty, Assistant Director, CCSNIAH.
The training programme comprised various sessions wherein interactive lectures were delivered by experts highlighting the importance of vaccination, deworming and tagging in animals, vaccination schedule to be followed, precautions to be taken while vaccinating the animal, importance of biosecurity for prevention of animal diseases, to name a few. A question-answer and feedback session moderated by Dr RK Singh followed the technical sessions to clear the doubts of the trainees. At the conclusion of the training programme, Dr Prem Kumar emphasised the implementation of One Health programme in Uttarakhand and assured all the necessary help including community engagement. The training programme along with other initiatives of the One Health pilot will further reduce the chances of infectious diseases through enhancing the practice of tagging and vaccinating the livestock amongst the Van Gujjar community and associating them with mainstream society by creating awareness about the initiatives taken by DAHD for reducing the occurrence of zoonotic and non-zoonotic diseases. Today’s training programme was conducted for members of the Van Gujjar Community of Dehradun District. Tomorrow, a similar training programme would be organised for members of the Van Gujjar Community of Haridwar and Rishikesh.
