News & features archive, 2010

Avian influenza and emerging animal disease control could benefit

Contemporary veterinary legislations help countries to fight diseases, participate in trade and regulate practitioners...

Training events in Eastern Europe aimed at improving the ability of countries to detect and control avian influenza are supported by FAO...

FAO continues to contribute to a better understanding of avian influenza at the human-animal interface...

Animal influenza viruses continue to threaten animal health, public health, food security and livelihoods...

FAO is committed to continue to provide assistance to Nepal on avian influenza and animal health issues...

Avian influenza has attracted considerable public and media attention because the viruses involved cause fatal disease in animals and humans...

On Qinghai Lake more than 100,000 migratory birds descend every summer to breed or rest during their northern spring migration. Here, the single largest wild bird mortality event attributable to H5N1 occurred in 2005...

Linking value chains with epidemiological analyses can allow for improved and targeted animal disease risk management because their combination facilitates the viewing of interactions between animal, pathogens, people and systems...

Pandemics come with major economic, health, political and social consequences. Protecting countries and their citizens against new infectious diseases will require innovative health management...

The value of veterinary epidemiology training is high given the low numbers of regional academic institutions and qualified personnel available to teach and conduct discipline-specific training...

Individual migratory wild birds have the potential to disperse avian influenza over large distances, but this is unlikely because there are only few days a year when infection could result in the effective dispersal...

Outbreaks of avian influenza in Vietnamese poultry continue. The disease persists in hotspots. FAO remains active in Viet Nam and continues to fight against this disease...

The number of emerging infectious diseases at the animal-human interface is increasing. Still, the precise mechanisms by which these socio-ecological dynamics or disruptions translate into successful disease emergence are not well understood...

It is now much better understood why the fight against this disease is so hard in the countries that remain infected...

Animal and public health agencies have stressed the importance of disease surveillance in poultry and wild birds. The building of capacities in relation to pandemic preparedness and animal health emergency responses are critical...

Early identification and response is key to preventing outbreaks

The United States Agency for International Development is renewing its support of FAO’s efforts to combat highly pathogenic avian influenza and other emerging infectious diseases, the UN agency announced today. USAID’s commitment totals US$26.3 million. The funds will support FAO technical assistance to strengthen HPAI surveillance and outbreak response capacities in regions where the disease still persists...

In Egypt, avian influenza remains detrimental to animal and human health, with significant impacts on economic progress, social stability and livelihoods...

Anomalous cold weather periods represent a warning signal for authorities to step up wild bird influenza surveillance in European wintering sites....

The global disease situation is now relatively stable, but still alarming in some countries where pockets of infections are closely associated to well-known risk factors that facilitate transmission...

A better understanding of the root causes that underpin pathogen evolution, establishment and persistence could potentially reveal the feasible and viable options to address emerging zoonotic diseases around the world...

One Health approach to more efficiently combat new pathogens is gaining strength

Governments could save billions of dollars by stepping up the prevention and control of high impact animal diseases, some of which pose a direct threat to human health, FAO said today...

Since onset of highly pathogenic avian influenza in 2003, this disease has proven to be detrimental to animal and human health, with significant impacts on food security, economic progress, social stability and livelihoods...

The OFFLU project in Indonesia is implemented by FAO and draws upon the resources available in the network, such as world leading scientists from a range of scientific fields....

June 04, 2010 – This exercise identified strengths and weaknesses in the country’s contingency plans for avian influenza and also examined the communication, coordination and cooperation between the different sectors involved in addressing avian influenza...

May 31, 2010 – Movement corridors link production clusters with consumption centres throughout Southeast Asia. Understanding how poultry commodities are produced, moved and consumed is a central element of animal health programmes....

May 26, 2010 – Programme delivery has been satisfactory and FAO had demonstrated the capacity to provide strong leadership and performance in supporting the countries in avian influenza preparedness and response....

May 24, 2010 – Influenza A, including avian influenza, is a major public health threat in developed and developing countries. Early, rapid and accurate detection is a key component of strategies to contain, halt or mitigate disease transmission...

May 19, 2010 – This scientific consultation attempted to identify commonalities and similarities among emerging infectious diseases, including influenzas, which have arisen at the human-animal interface, through careful examination of disease events reported worldwide...

May 03, 2010 – This article contributes important information to the increasing body of evidence regarding the prevalence of low pathogenic avian influenzas in wild birds in Iran...

April 30, 2010 – The Emergency Prevention System (EMPRES) Wildlife Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was established to investigate the role that wildlife species play in diseases that impact livestock and agriculture based livelihoods...

April 27, 2010 – Poultry trade flows through movement corridors that link production clusters with consumption centres throughout South and Southeast Asia...

April 20, 2010 – Mid-size traders and farms that sell poultry to small farmers could act as avian flu transmission hubs and there needs to be to better biosecurity at that level, a top United Nations expert said on Tuesday...

April 20, 2010 – The H5N1 strain of avian influenza remains established in places where tens of millions of free-ranging domestic ducks are present, significant industrial broiler production exists together with live bird markets, and where human and animal densities are high...

FAO calls for sustained action on H5N1 and emerging infections

April 16, 2010 – Concerted international action has successfully eliminated the deadly H5N1 avian influenza virus from poultry in almost all the 63 countries it infected at the peak of the world outbreak in 2006 but it persists in five nations and poses a continuing threat to global animal and human health...

April 01, 2010 – The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) collaborates with national governments and universities to better understand the dynamic evolution of animal diseases in diverse ecological landscapes...

March 24, 2010 – An international team of experts has warned that while more is known today about the role of wild birds in the spread of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus than ever before, significant information gaps remain unfilled as government and public attention is shifting elsewhere...

International task force concerned over declining support for H5N1 monitoring, despite disease persistence and spread

March 23, 2010 – The dynamic interactions among a wide and complex range of stakeholders in Indonesia have affected the spread and persistence of HPAI, as well as the policies and practices associated with animal health responses...

March 17, 2010 – The dynamic interactions among a wide and complex range of stakeholders in Indonesia have affected the spread and persistence of HPAI, as well as the policies and practices associated with animal health responses...

March 10, 2010 – The project, a first of its kind in Bangladesh, attracted many collaborators and involved personnel from Ministry of Agriculture (Department of Livestock Services), Ministry of Environment and Forests (Wildlife Department), Wetlands International (WI) an International NGO, Wildlife Trust (WT) an International NGO based in New York USA, United States Geological Survey (USGS), Wildlife Trust Bangladesh (WTB) a Bangladesh based NGO, Bangladesh Bird Club (BBC) a Bangladesh based NGO, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) a Mumbai India based NGO, the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh a Bangladesh based international health research institution and FAO Headquarters, RAP and Bangladesh...

March 08, 2010 – A final stage evaluation of the work embarked by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to control Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) finds that substantial progress has been made in the preparedness and response mechanisms directed at this disease. FAO has demonstrated the capacity to provide strong leadership and performance in supporting countries in avian influenza preparedness and response, and should continue to work in this area to ensure that the important gains made so far are not lost...

February 26, 2010 – In the Greater Mekong Region (GMR), the emergence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) from 2004 to 2010 has affected animal and human health through mortality and morbidity. The continued occurrence of outbreaks across much of the GMR is likely to be caused by active cross border bird trade, and the increasing phylogenetic variation of virus isolates suggests relatively frequent virus hosts introduction. Owing to diverse multi-country ecological landscapes and high transboundary disease transmission risks, there is urgent need for more determined multilateral policy coordination...

January 27, 2010 – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the General Organization of Veterinary Services are both interested in determining the factors that more significantly contribute to the lack of positive impact that the Egyptian avian influenza vaccination programme had on hampering disease transmission dynamics....

January 19, 2010 – The concept behind wild bird radio telemetry is straightforward: attaching a radio transmitter to a wild bird and track the emitted signals to determine its movements...