World Bank will provide financial help to minimise threat posed to humans by HPAI infection and to prepare for, control, and respond to influenza pandemics and other infectious disease emergencies in humans, which will be completed with the total cost of $21.4 million.
To achieve this, three areas will be considered for support: prevention, preparedness and planning, and response and containment, said Kevin Crockford, Senior Rural Development Specialist of the World Bank in update project report.
He said that the project would finance activities under four components: animal health, human health, public awareness and information, and implementation support, monitoring and evaluation.
Commenting over the animal health, he mentioned that the project would support four areas. Policy framework and HPAI prevention and control planning: This will include a review and improvement of the regulatory and legislative framework, a review of the current national compensation policy and strategy development (co-ordination structures, procedures, contingency planning, and the development of operational manuals).
Strengthening of veterinary services and disease surveillance and diagnosis: Training to more staff and providing adequate operational funding to improve veterinary services and laboratory facilities at all levels. This would also include support for epidemiological studies and disease information.
Outbreak containment/virus eradication at source, vaccination campaigns and veterinary staff safety: There is a need to strengthen provincial veterinary departments by providing regular update training and adequate operational funding to cover the direct costs associated with any culling etc, and to provide funds to pay compensation.
Limited funding will also be provided for vaccines for ring campaigns and appropriate protective clothing, training and equipment for workers at risk.
Modernisation of poultry sector, especially with regards to bio-safety: The proposed programme would aim at providing incentives for level 3 (low-cost intensive) producers to improve their bio-security measures, he added.
Kevin Crockford said human health component would fill in gaps in financing for related activities, while public awareness and co-ordination support component would be cross cutting in so far as it would provide support for both Minfal and MoH to develop and disseminate information to the public about HPAI. The project would provide funds to supplement those already available (GOP/Unicef) to expand and continue media campaigns.
The component is designed to safeguard human health, in particular for extension staff, animal health workers, poultry producers and their families, by improving public awareness and information. It would have two sub-components: capacity building; and information and communication services. Support would be provided to improve existing communication material so as to distinguish between AI and pandemic influenza, to be better technically informed, and to involve all stakeholders in public and the private sector, he added.
Commenting upon the 'Implementation Support and Monitoring and Evaluation', Kevin Crockford mentioned that this sub-component would support costs associated with project coordination, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The national and provincial coordinating committees for avian influenza control would be supported together with the costs associated with a small project management unit within Minfal.
This would also be strengthened by the recruitment of additional staff/consultants responsible for overall administration, procurement, and financial management. In addition an inter-ministerial 'Joint Co-ordination Committee' would be established to ensure integration between Minfal and MoH programmes, he added.
Kevin Crockford mentioned in his report that the recent outbreaks of H5N1 in NWFP had confirmed that Pakistan was at high risk as far as highly pathogenic AI (HPAI) is concerned. With a large and growing poultry population, much of which has only modest bio-security there is every reason to be concerned that H5N1 could become endemic in Pakistan as it has in a number of other countries in Asia.
There is a clear global public goods argument in favour of assisting Pakistan to strengthen its veterinary service capacity so as to be able to react swiftly and effectively to stamp out any future outbreaks of H5N1.
With assistance from FAO and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Pakistan has improved its veterinary service capacity as far as AI is concerned substantially, and there is now a cadre of trained staff who know how to contain the disease.
It is also the case that much greater investment in rapid, open communication is needed if the disease is to be swiftly and effectively contained. In Indonesia failure to report outbreaks until four months after they first occurred led to a massive, and unnecessary, increase in poultry mortality (9million birds) before the disease was contained. The GOP has made provision for some additional funding, but external resources will be needed to meet the medium term needs of the veterinary services, improve human health preparedness and improve communications.
The World Bank Office in Islamabad has undertaken an 'Assessment on strategy, response, and preparedness to the threat of a potential Avian Influenza pandemic. This assessment concludes that Pakistan has made good progress in developing measures to detect and control AI, and that the main requirement is for modest funding to further strengthen veterinary services and to enable surveillance to continue on a sustainable basis. The assessment further concludes that there is limited official concern about the potential threat of AI and limited political will to secure internal or external resources for AI preparedness, he concluded.