Damascus UN workshop on screw-worm eradication

The Syrian ministry of agriculture in collaboration with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is organizing a regional workshop on the screw-worm fly to be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus 6-10 December.

Countries invited to workshop are Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Yemen and Syria. Also participating in the event are representatives of FAO's regional office in Cairo, the Arab Organization for Agricultural development, the Islamic Bank for Development and donor countries.

Shedding light on the workshop, FAO 's resident representative in Damascus said that the main aim of the workshop is providing information to update the countries in the region on this screw-worm problem in general and to discuss the different possibilities for tackling the problem either by solving it completely -- for example through eradication or reducing it to a containable sub-economic level.

The workshop should therefore come up with recommendations which could be presented to those interested groups who are likely to organize and find control measures.