Rapid Response Team Training on addressing the frequent occurrence of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza
Lalitpur-A two-day Rapid Response Team Training for officer level was organized by the FAO 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 and recent outbreak of H5N1 in Pokhara, Kaski and H5N8 outbreak in Sunnsari and N5N1 and H5N8 outbreak in the country, 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 HPAI 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 existence of open major flyways of migratory birds further alerted the country. With thses situations, a possible threat of outbreak was looming large which had potential to disrupt th egrowing poutry industry in the country inany time of the year.
Department of Livestock Service (DLS) of the Government of Nepal has defined a standard training package for RRT deployed to deal with HPAI outbreak having Animal Health and Public Health emergencies.
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.
FAO, in collaboration with the DLS, is implementing the USAID funded projects. The projecr have been organizing training to the government and the private sector officers from time to time with objectives of updating on the recognition of HPAI, sampling and diagnosis, bio-security measures and the surveillance.
The RRT training attended by twenty veterinary officers aims at developing essential human resources at the field level who are designated to be involved in disease surveillance, sample collection, stamping out operation (RRT) and cleaning and disinfection activities that were not trained in the past.