Foot-and-Mouth Disease Real Time Training continues in Nepal
Lalitpur-A two-day Rapid Response Team Training for officer level was organized by jointly by Department of Livestock Services (DLS) and FAO under the Project “Immediate Technical Assistance to Strengthen Emergency Preparedness for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza” on 30-31 May 2017 in Lalitpur. The project is funded by USAID under Emerging Pandemic Threat-2 (EPT-2) programme and technically supported by FAO.
The training was focused on addressing the frequent occurrence of for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks. The frequent occurrence of HPAI (H5N1) outbreaks in the past, recent outbreak of HPAI (H5N1) in Pokhara, Kaski and HPAI (H5N8) outbreak in Sunnsari, coupled with a recent outbreak of HPAI (H5N8) in India have focused severe attention on the need for the concerned authorities to continue to strengthen preparedness and prevention measures.
After the emergency of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPA) in Southeast Asia in 2003, Nepal started to recognize the threat posed by the disease and this was later followed by the need for high alert in the country as India reported its first HPAI cases in February 2006. The goal of training is to ensure that DLS have a highly skilled, quality-assured responder, knowledgeable of how best to work with different scenario, with other stakeholders in managing HPAI outbreak in the country.
The RRT training was attended by twenty (20) veterinary officers from the field level, who were not trained in the past. These trainees are expected to be involved directly in outbreak investigation, disease surveillance, and stamping out operation including cleaning and disinfection activities.