The United Nations food arm has announced it is giving four Asian countries – Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan and Viet Nam – $1.6 million to help them battle the recent outbreak of avian influenza or “bird flu.”
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) created the emergency aid package after a request from the four nations to improve their emergency disease control and surveillance systems.
He Changchui, head of the FAO’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, said yesterday the aid would be sent immediately. “More international assistance is needed to enable poorer countries to better deal with the crisis,” he said.
At least 13 people have died in Viet Nam and Thailand as a result of contracting the H5N1 virus strain in the current outbreak. Millions of domestic birds have died or been slaughtered in the Republic of Korea, Viet Nam, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Laos, Pakistan, Taiwan, Province of China and Indonesia since December.
The aid package will be used to prepare a zoning plan for culling birds, train farmers and government workers on safe disposal and disinfection, provide protective gear, equipment and laboratory supplies, make rapid diagnoses, and begin national epidemiological studies of the disease.
Meanwhile at FAO headquarters in Rome, health and veterinary experts are today wrapping up a two-day meeting on the outbreak organized by the FAO, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Animal Health Organization.