15 September 2022

3 minute read

By: Laurence Williams

Africa

Asia

Glenn David Executive Vice President and Group President of Zoetis, speaks to The Poultry Site on the 5th anniversary of the A.L.P.H.A Initiative.

Sustainable development achievements in five years

The A.L.P.H.A. initiative is helping Zoetis meet its aspirations to grow veterinary care in emerging markets under its Driven to Care long-term sustainability goals, which build on the company’s purpose to nurture the world by advancing care for animals.

By focusing its innovation expertise and partnerships on solving sustainability challenges facing animals and people, Zoetis is committed to helping achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through its A.L.P.H.A. initiative, the company has dramatically improved livestock health and farmers’ livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa in three major areas:

• Increased availability of veterinary medicine and medicalization rate:

With 91 new veterinary products commercially available (including vaccines, parasitic treatments and medicines), Zoetis has allowed 128 million animals to receive quality veterinary care (124M chickens, 4M cows) ensuring healthier animals and producing safe food. In 2017, at the beginning of the program, only four products were commercially available in the region.

The prevention of disease in poultry has been a key focus for the A.L.P.H.A. initiative. Zoetis has provided access to a broad portfolio of poultry vaccines, which it hopes will help to prevent disease and reduce treatment, including the use of antibiotics in poultry farming.

• Sustainable diagnostic infrastructure provision:

In five years of activity, the company has made significant progress in establishing infrastructure and training to improve the state of animal health and productivity. Sixteen established serology laboratories provide diagnostic services to farmers across Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda. The laboratory network has been upgraded in cooperation with public and private local partners, and today it provides access across an important part of Zoetis’ continuum of care (diagnostics, prevention and treatment) even for smaller scale producers close to their homes in four countries.

• Professional development and business training courses to veterinary stakeholders:

Since 2019, Zoetis experts have held a significant number of training sessions for local veterinary service providers, diagnostic labs’ personnel and farmers in partnership with local authorities, associations and NGOs to increase the level of care and knowledge of disease management and veterinary care. To-date more than 26,000 farmers, veterinarians and veterinarian paraprofessionals (VPP) have been trained – of which around 30% are women – with an estimated extended reach of over 1.3M people through train-the-trainer programs.

About A.L.P.H.A.

The A.L.P.H.A. initiative, co-funded with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017, was first launched in Uganda and Nigeria, followed by Ethiopia in 2018 and Tanzania in 2019. This initiative aimed at advancing livestock health and productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa through increased availability of veterinary medicines and services, and the implementation of disease diagnostics infrastructure. To ensure long term sustainability of this initiative, Zoetis has developed veterinary laboratory networks and outreach services into local economic hubs in partnership with veterinary associations, local food chain players and governmental institutions.