Avian Flu Threat Was Reduced by $949M in Aid
FrontLines - June 2009
Just three years after the
H5N1 avian influenza virus
spread rapidly across Asia,
Africa, Europe, and the Middle
East, killing dozens of people
and sparking fears of a global
pandemic, a vigorous global
effort led by USAID has apparently
helped reverse the geographic
spread of the disease.
The virus now has an
endemic presence in only five
countries: Bangladesh, China,
Egypt, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Leading all other international
efforts, the U.S. government
committed $949 million to combat
avian flu globally, including
$543 million from USAID.
“USAID’s system has
proved extraordinarily efficient—
we’ve had substantial
progress in 53 countries,” said
Dennis Carroll, special advisor
to the Acting Administrator on
pandemic influenza.
Compared to 55 countries
affected by H5N1 outbreaks
between 2003 and 2006, only
nine countries have reported
outbreaks in poultry or humans
during 2009.
Bangladesh had a dramatic
turnaround. Outbreaks in poultry
dropped sharply from 221 in
the flu season between October
2007 and March 2008, to just 31
in the 2008-2009 flu season.
Despite this progress, the
disease is still a threat: more
than 60 percent of at least 420
humans who caught the disease
have died; and the H5N1 virus
continues to mutate, raising
the possibility that it could
someday trigger an influenza
pandemic in humans.
Since 2005, USAID has
worked with the Departments
of State, Agriculture, Health
and Human Services, and the
Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to support
national planning, surveillance,
response, containment, risk
awareness, and pandemic preparedness.
These efforts have
increased country-level capacities
to respond to and limit
disease spread.
Three years ago, USAID began
working with the United Nations
and other partners to strengthen
surveillance systems in Vietnam,
China, Indonesia, and other
countries so that outbreaks of the
disease would be quickly reported
to health and agriculture officials.
As a result, detection times fell
from 12 days in 2006 to five days
in 2009. Shorter detection times
means that outbreaks can be
contained before the disease has a
chance to spread further.
USAID trained 82,000 people
in rapid response to poultry
outbreaks and human cases; and
provided 700,000 sets of protective
clothing to 84 countries to
protect response workers. The
Agency also stockpiled supplies
for disinfection in these
countries.
Increased surveillance
helped identify how avian flu
has spread. In Indonesia, Egypt,
and Bangladesh, the disease
was likely circulating on
commercial farms and spread
through the movement of
poultry to bird markets and to
holding centers where birds are
processed for shipment to urban
areas. USAID provided training
and supplies in these countries
and in Vietnam to clean and
disinfect holding centers and markets to reduce the amount of
H5N1 virus.
To minimize the chances of
human infections with H5N1,
USAID supported public awareness
campaigns—including
distribution of posters at public
events and TV and radio spots—
to inform people of the risk
posed by the disease and the
importance of preventing and
containing it.
In addition to activities
intended to prevent the emergence
of a pandemic, USAID
has also been working through
its Humanitarian Pandemic
Preparedness Initiative with
the United Nations, international
and national NGOs, and
militaries to improve pandemic
preparedness in developing
countries.
About 96 percent of mortality
due to an influenza pandemic
would be concentrated in developing
countries, estimates say.
Following its success with
H5N1 avian flu, USAID now
intends to broaden its efforts to
monitor and respond to other
zoonotic diseases—illnesses
that are spread to humans from
animals. Initial focus areas will
be the Congo Basin, Southeast
Asia, and the Amazon, where
there is rich wildlife and increasing
human contact and where
many diseases have emerged
in the past. In fiscal year 2009,
Congress appropriated new
funding for USAID to build a
global early warning surveillance
and response network for
the next generation of emerging
pandemic threats.
★ —B.B.
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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