Hanoi, Viet Nam. Biosecurity  in poultry production is a set of preventive measures such as movement control, cleaning, disinfection and vaccination to prevent disease introduction and spread. By implementing strict biosecurity, farm owners decrease risk of disease incursion carried by people, animals, vehicles and equipment to their farms.

Since the emergence of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in 2003, there have been a total of 127 infected human cases with 64 deaths due to H5N1 virus reported in Viet Nam . Exposure to infected chicken is the most important risk factor for human infection. Although there is no human H5N1 infection in Viet Nam since 2014, Viet Nam continues to reported poultry outbreaks of H5N1 and H5N6 on a large geographical coverage nationwide. These situation challenges the poultry industry especially the actors in the production chain such as broiler and layer farms, hatcheries .

As a continuing effort to assist Viet Nam to address HPAI and other emerging zoonotic influenzas focusing at farm level, the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases  (ECTAD), FAO Viet Nam and the national Department of Livestock and Production (DLP) launched the project “Evidence-based risk management along the livestock production and market chain” in December 2017. The project aims to improve management practices and biosecurity along the poultry production chain, it has four objectives including 1) To improve application of biosecurity and husbandry practices at farm level; 2) To strengthen capacity of local authorities on poultry hatchery and farm registration, auditing and certification; 3) To improve registration, auditing and certification system for hatcheries; and 4) To enhance coordination among stakeholders involved in project management and implementation.

“One of the most crucial requirement of poultry production is to keep diseases out of farms, FAO therefore strongly recommends the strict application of biosecurity measures as it is the most effective way to prevent and control the HPAI viruses spreading along the production chain as well as potential transmission to humans” stated by Pawin Padungtod, Senior Technical Coordinator of FAO ECTAD Viet Nam.

While poultry producers are the direct beneficiaries through various training activities, the project would also engages the local authorities during its implementation to assure the farm auditing and certification system will be sustained by the local system after the project phase out. Bac Giang province was selected as the project site due to its high poultry population.

“Our recommended set of management and biosecurity practices  should be consistently applied in different areas of a farm and a hatchery. We believe healthy flocks contribute to the health of humans, safer animal production and better protect farmers’ livelihood” indicated by Pawin.

The project “Evidence-based risk management along the livestock production and market chain” is funded by The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).