Webinar: Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in Central Asia and the Caucasus

9:00-11:10 CEST

Avian influenza is a highly contagious transboundary disease with zoonotic potential. In its high pathogenicity form, AI causes variable clinical signs in poultry and birds, including severe illness. It can lead to high mortality rates in poultry flocks, as well as in populations of wild birds and mammals. The disease comes at a high cost. Not only due to the production losses associated to the mortality and stamping out measures that affect all poultry producers, from backyards to large integrated enterprises, but also because of the trade disruptions at both domestic and international levels and the severe negative impacts on local livelihood and tourism industry. Thus, there are public health risks, food security risks and a plausible effect on the economy of the affected countries.

With the confirmation of the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in multiple Asian member states, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia has been in contact with the national authorities of the member states in Central Asia and Caucasus, with the aim of providing technical and logistical support to respond to this emergency and to solve questions about HPAI diagnosis in Central Asia and Caucasus with the aim to provide technical assistance to all veterinary laboratories in these regions.

To ensure preparedness, early detection, and response against the incursion of HPAI, it is paramount to cover some gaps in the knowledge of the first responders – veterinarians and the veterinary laboratory staff in charge of the AI diagnosis.

The webinar will be conducted in Russian.

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