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1. Since October 2005, ALive is involved in a global partnership for prevention and control of Avian and Human Influenza in sub-Saharan Africa by promoting surveillance, early detection and rapid responses mechanisms at national and regional levels, according to the Global Strategy officially adopted in Beijing in January 2006. During the Sixth Executive Committee meeting in Bamako, April 2006, it was decided to add the prevention and the control of AHI as a major topic to the on-going 3-year Action Plan (2004-2007) of ALive, with the following activities: (i) the elaboration of the HPAI portfolio in sub-Saharan Africa (see portfolio); (ii) a needs and gaps assessment for the prevention and control of AHI in sub-Saharan Africa, which were presented during the Vienna (initial draft) and Bamako (finalized draft) international conferences on AHI; (iii) a research proposal on AHI led by FARA; and (iv) the promotion of a common mechanism to support African countries in their preparation, based on the Integrated Action Plans approach recommended during the Beijing conference (see mechanism).
2. During the Seventh Executive Committee meeting in Nairobi, October 2006, in light of the expected expansion of this animal disease throughout the continent, it was decided to reinforce ALive’s strategy on the prevention and control of AHI in Africa.
3. By allocating 8 M € (approx 10.5 M US$) to the ALive multi-donor Trust Fund (hosted by the World Bank), the European Commission made this reinforcement possible. The official agreement between the European Commission and the World Bank was signed during the Bamako International Conference on Avian and Human Influenza (December 7, 2006 - see picture below).
(signature of the 8 million euros grant between the European Commission and the World Bank - from left to right: Dr B. Vallat, president of the Executive Committee of ALive and Director General of OIE; R.Mateus-Paula (Head of Unit Europaid, EC); J. McIntire, senior advisor AFTSD, the World Bank)
4. Priority activities to be supported over a 3-year period (2007-2009) with these funds are:
- Rapid evaluation of potential response of Sub-Saharan African countries towards avian influenza;
- Support to the elaboration and updating of avian influenza and human pandemic preparedness national plans (IAP);
- Evaluation of national Veterinary Services for early detection and rapid response in case of emerging diseases' outbreaks, in collaboration with services for human health;
- Development of a regional communication strategy for avian and human influenza and other priority diseases and development of national and regional action plans;
- Identification of needs in terms of regional networks (networking between national diagnostic laboratories, epidemio-surveillance teams and socio-economic surveys) design of national socio-economic studies and preparation of national and regional projects;
- Identification of applied research needs concerning avian and human influenza and other priority diseases and preparation of national and regional projects. Connection of networks to the worldwide OFFLU network (OIE, WHO, FAO);
- Follow-up and evaluation of response to avian and human influenza.
5. The above set of activities is in line with ALive's mandate to support regional activities (networking, communication and capitalization activities) and up-stream activities to operations (rapid assessment and auto-evaluation of Veterinary Services). These activities are expected to be complementary to governments and RECs' programs/projects on AHI and to contribute to their quality. Complementarity of ALive funds with others sources of funds for AHI activities are presented on the diagram below:
(Use of the ALive’s funds on AHI / complementarity with other funds)
6. Considering the additional amount of work conveyed by these extra activities on AHI, the Executive Committee has decided to reinforce the ALive Secretariat (in charge of the monitoring and evaluation of these activities), by opening two (co-terminus) positions : a livestock/animal health specialist and a human health specialist are being recruited to join the current ALive Secretariat team, following the World Bank recruitment procedures. More information on these positions can be found on this website (see also the following link).
7. The prevention and control of AHI requires an interdisciplinary approach (animal health, human health and communication aspects) as recommended during the Beijing Conference. Therefore, in addition to the recruitment of a human specialist (see point 6), the governance of ALive - and in particular the Executive Committee - will be temporarily extended with observers from WHO and UNICEF, from whom guidance in the specific fields of human health and communication will be sought.
8. This experience on AHI paves the way for the prevention and control of future emerging and re-emerging animal diseases. Lessons learnt from AHI - notably the design of a comprehensive framework for the prevention and control of an animal disease with strong zoonotic potential - will be drawn.
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