With USAID's support and Abt Associates' training community-based Animal Health Workers visit farmers on a regular basis to provide and collect information for more proactive disease surveillance.
In 2009 the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded the Avian and Pandemic Influenza Initiative (APII) in Vietnam to Abt Associates. As a task order under the TASC 3 IQC, this initiative strengthens the capacity of the Government of Vietnam and its counterparts to identify, prevent, and control outbreaks of avian influenza and other emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in animals and humans. Activities include strengthening surveillance and outbreak control; building animal and human health workers' and communities' capacity to identify, prevent and control Avian and Pandemic Influenza (API); supporting biosecurity activities and reducing risk in the poultry supply network; improving preparedness planning to better respond to emergency outbreaks; and developing and implementing behavior change communication strategies and other measures.
In line with USAID's overarching goal of successfully containing the H5N1 virus within the animal population, and building on Abt Associates' integrated approach for sustainable impact, the multi-faceted project is focused on both the animal and human aspects of the disease, the local and national levels for more effective prevention, and the public and private sectors for a more complete response to this need.
Building on Abt Associates' integrated approach for sustainable impact, the multi-faceted project is focused on both the animal side and the human side of the disease, the local level and the national level for more effective prevention, and the public sector and the private sector for a more complete response to this need.
To-date the initiative has developed training systems and materials for community volunteers to identify symptoms of several reportable diseases in humans and animals and to report into the national surveillance systems; developed training materials to help district and commune level health facility staff operationalize the Government of Vietnam’s Circular 18, which mandates infection control programs in all facilities (this training is now being formally adopted and rolled out throughout Vietnam’s public health system); developed training packages and modules for both animal health workers and agriculture extension workers in animal health and biosecurity – strengthening community based animal health workers’ ability to address API and other EIDs and farmers knowledge of reduced risk farming practices; updated two markets and three slaughter points in-order to facilitate better biosecurity and rick reduction practices while selling and butchering poultry.
Abt Associates is joined for APII by the Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP), which will continue its work to train animal health workers (AHW) and agricultural extension workers (AEW), and the Vietnam Red Cross which supported local stakeholders to develop, test, and revise pandemic preparedness plans. This initiative builds on Abt Associates' successful implementation of the Avian Influenza Mekong Initiative, which worked to test, refine, and implement key methodologies to build the local capacity of the government and communities to better identify, prevent, and manage the spread of the H5N1 virus, Avian Influenza, or bird flu.