Organization : National Agriculture Quarantine & Inspection Authority
Facility : SMS Service
Country : Papua New Guinea
Website : naqia.gov.pg/News/organisation%20news.html
SMS Service :
** THE National Agriculture and quarantine Authority (NAQIA) is now able to send reports of sick and dead animals around the country much faster using a new short messaging service (SMS) system.
Related : National Agriculture Quarantine & Inspection Authority Import Permits Application Papua New Guinea : www.statusin.org/8145.html
** The SMS reporting is the first animal disease reporting project to be developed in the country.The project involves sending SMS messages through mobile phones to report any sick or dead animals much faster.
** NAQIA officers, provincial DPI livestock officers, including NGOs stationed in strategic locations all over PNG, can now send messages using mobiles phones.
** The messages sent are automatically recorded on an online database, monitored by NAQIA.
Project coordinator and acting animal health programme manager for field services Dr Estelo Quimbo said reports collated in the past seven days from around Papua New Guinea are sent to their online database every Monday for analysing and for possible field disease investigations. “
As a result of using this new SMS reporting system, sending and investigating disease reports can now be done in the shortest possible time,” he said. “I can say that we can now monitor on what is happening on the ground in the most remote areas of PNG and collate all these SMS reports in our online database.”
** This project was developed in 2012 and was implemented in January 2013 by NAQIA in partnership with the Australian Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and AusAID.
** NAQIA’s ICT manager Aaron Uforty said : “We are utilising the mobile phone network and installing the application in mobile phones so that officers reporting can use the mobile phone to send reports just like sending text message.
However, you don’t do a lot of typing, you answer yes or no and select options and enter numbers and you are done. The messages sent are automatically recorded on an online database, monitored by NAQIA.”
** Project coordinator and acting animal health programme manager for field services Dr Estelo Quimbo said reports collated in the past seven days from around Papua New Guinea are sent to their online database every Monday for analysing and for possible field disease investigations.
One of these successful reports sent was the recent New Castle Disease outbreak in Vanimo, East Sepik Province, PNG along the Indonesian Boarder.
About Us :
The National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority is mandated under the National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority Act 1997 to provide sound scientific quarantine and inspection services to assist and encourage agricultural production by minimising the risks of introducing exotic animal and plant pests and diseases.
PNG is relatively free of many of the world’s pest and diseases that are detrimental to our agricultural production, the environment and the livelihoods of Papua New Guineans at large.
About 87 % of the population is dependent on Agricultural Production and 26 % of agricultural produce is exported.
More importantly, the rural populations are heavily dependent on subsistence agriculture. With the changing economy and increasing global trading partners, Papua New Guinea faces increasing risks of exotic pest and diseases introductions.
The National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority through its monitoring and surveillance functions at the Airports, Seaports, International Mail Exchanges; import and export facilitation in the country minimises these risks.