Early detection and rapid response to control the outbreak of a disease when it emerges is one of the major challenges faced by the veterinary sector when dealing with emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases like HPAI.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is working closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) towards building capacity for outbreak investigation, rapid response and disease surveillance within the veterinary sector.

Viet Nam’s national strategy for HPAI – The Integrated National Operational Program for Avian and Human Influenza (OPI) 2006-2010 or the Green Book –recognizes capacity building as a key to progressive disease control.

With funding from donors, FAO is providing technical assistance in the veterinary services sector at the operational level to strengthen the surveillance and the rapid response capacity of the local veterinary authorities through training on monitoring, detection, diagnosis and control of HPAI and other transboundary animal diseases. 

Training is provided to veterinarians and para-veterinarians at the provincial and district levels in four pilot provinces - Nam Dinh and  Phu Tho in the North, and Ben Tre and Vinh Long in the South.  The main objective of the training is to enable personnel at the field level to conduct rapid disease outbreak investigation and active surveillance. 

A review was conducted on the current infrastructure and a disease surveillance model was developed to adapt to the epidemiological situation of HPAI in Viet Nam.  This model is being tested in the four pilot provinces and if proven effective in strengthening the country’s disease surveillance system, it would be expanded to other provinces.  

FAO recognizes the high importance of engaging provincial and district level Steering Committee members and promoting wider understanding of the technical activities required for rapidly responding to a disease outbreak.

It is usually the Steering Committee for avian influenza (AI) at the provincial, district and commune levels who make key decisions to respond rapidly to a disease outbreak at the local level.  

Series of workshops are being organized in the pilot provinces to promote better understanding on the technical aspect of the disease situation to the multi-sectoral committee.