Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in the ERP Tool kit

Children are more at risk of falling victim to the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) because they are the ones that play around the poultry and have unprotected contact with the poultry. Women are also most vulnerable since they are mainly responsible for dealing with small animals. The continuing outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in several Southeast Asian countries (Vietnam, Thailand, PR China, Lao PDR, Cambodia and Indonesia) that begun in late 2003 and early 2004 have been disastrous to the poultry industry in the region and have raised serious global public health concerns. Over 150 million domestic poultry have either died or been destroyed and over a hundred people have contracted the infection, of which close to 60 have died since May 2005. The occurrence of human cases of infection with the H5N1 virus responsible for this panzootic and evidence that it has spread with migrating wild birds as far as Eastern Europe and Africa has caused global alarm. If the virus adapts itself to human-to human transmission, millions of lives especially of the rural people may be threatened.
Despite remarkable progress in addressing extreme hunger and poverty, the number of the world poor remains high.
Almost 80% of the poor live in rural areas and the vast majority is dependent on agriculture for its livelihood. For poor households depending for their livelihood on poultry, HPAI will mean the loss of income and food security. The impact of a pandemic is hard to predict, but there will be increased illness because humans will have no immunity to the new virus. Although rural women and children are the most directly affected by the infection as well as by the potentially devastating social and economic impacts of a pandemic, everybody needs to prepare for a possible pandemic.
Many developing countries have a poor capacity to undertake livestock disease surveillance to detect the incursion of Avian Influenza. FAO has thus started implementation of preparedness planning for countries to be at risk of infection and is working with International and Regional Organizations - such as the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Health Organisation (WHO) - and individual countries to enhance HPAI diagnosis and surveillance in Asia trough the set up of sub-regional Networks using harmonised methods and tools. It is projected that FAO will implement 50% of programmes to support currently non-infected countries in preparing for outbreaks of Avian Influenza. According to their peculiar competencies different divisions and services inside FAO have already taken actions in developing appropriate responses. Education and training are crucial to prevent a possible pandemic and to prepare for it.
To this purpose the ERP partnership, while primarily focusing on the needs of rural poor, engages itself in:

• Collecting within FAO and sharing through the ERP Tool kit key information and training materials for the use of teachers, instructors, trainers, parents, researchers, extensionists and all those involved in formal and non-formal education for preventing, combating and eradicating the HPAI disease;
• Encouraging the 250 Members of the ERP Partnership to share the learning material produced for preventing and combating the HPAI with the ERP coordination unit for possible posting on the ERP Tool kit.
• Promoting cross-organizational synergies and exchange of experience in education and training, focusing on prevention and fight against HPAI.