Avian and Human Pandemic Influenza: Addressing the Need for Integration between Health and Agriculture in the Preparedness Plans

This working paper is one of the results of The Inter-American Development Bank's (IADB) Regional Technical “Preparing Latin America and the Caribbean for an Eventual Avian Influenza and Human Influenza Pandemic” project. The preparation of the document was coordinated by The Rural Development Unit of the Inter-American Development Bank's Sustainable Development Department and the Pan American Health Organization's (PAHO) Veterinary Public Health Units, HDM.

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the integration between the health and agriculture sectors in preparedness plans in Latin American countries, and to provide recommendations on how to fill in the potential gaps. The study highlights the importance of intersectoral action in preventing and controlling avian influenza. Intersectoral action calls for an integrated approach that incorporates all sectors involved, including the veterinary, agriculture and human health sectors. According to the study, addressing complex health issues in an integrated way allows each sector to pool resources, knowledge and expertise so that the interests of all sectors are brought together into one common set of interests.

According to the study, intersectoral action to prevent avian flu involves:

• Surveillance that is integrated across sectors (ensuring better cooperation through information sharing);
• Adequate biosecurity (ensuring that animals and human food supplies linked to them are protected);
• Adequate biosafety (ensuring the protection of people in contact with the virus); and
• Adequate public information (ensuring scientific facts and risks are sufficiently communicated).

The authors conducted an analysis, by subregion, of the intersectoral integration between health and agriculture preparedness plans in Latin America. The results of this analysis lead to a series of recommendations on how to improve the integration of health and agriculture in avian influenza preparedness plans in the Region of the Americas. The recommendations include proposals within the following themes:

• Integration policy, with specific mechanisms of technical cooperation to reinforce intersectoriality.
• Financial aspects, with suggestions related to strategic funding for avian influenza
  intersectoral action.
• Training, with several short and long-term options to enhance the intersectoral response to an avian influenza outbreak.
• Access to data and information dissemination, with proposals on how to maximise access to information from and to all sectors involved.
• Interdisciplinary studies, which would increase knowledge on the disease and allow for a better response from all sectors.

The study concludes by providing complementary strategies that represent a generic action plan to improve the integration between the agriculture and health sectors in the preparedness for bird flu. The strategies include:

Strategy 1: Mobilise a strong regional and national commitment for intersectoral action in the prevention and control of zoonoses, in particular avian influenza.

Strategy 2: Develop a responsive, participatory national response system to zoonotic
threats, in particular avian flu, including integrated surveillance, logistical
preparedness, and a communication strategy that addresses the need for information of all audiences.

Strategy 3: Develop a better knowledge base of the overall situation of zoonotic diseases, in particular avian influenza, in the Region of the Americas, including on a variety of indicators of the human, animal health, and agricultural situation and the potential effects of a pandemic on socioeconomic, health, and environment indicators.