Animal Production and Health Newsletter, No. 59, January 2014

As 2013 draws to a close, we are completing our activities and contributions to the 2012-2013 IAEA and FAO programmes of work and budget, and finalizing our tasks and products and services for the next biennium. We hope that our programme will satisfy Member State needs maximally. I want to mention two events regarding the activities of the Animal Production and Health Subprogramme. First, I have the pleasure to inform you that the Animal Production and Health Subprogramme was part of a 'One-House' IAEA team that was awarded an IAEA Superior Achievement Award for its response to Member States requests regarding the H7N9 avian influenza outbreak in several provinces of China. The aggravating factor with this new avian influenza disease was that it was asymptomatic in poultry (i.e. poultry showed no clinical disease), but symptomatic in humans (i.e. humans showed flu like symptoms) causing about 30% mortality in infected humans. This epidemiological character of the disease made it very difficult to trace and search for its origin in poultry, towards protecting human lives. The Chinese authorities, in particular the Beijing Genetics Institute, reacted appropriately to the outbreaks and characterized the virus, isolated from human patients, as an avian influenza H7N9 subtype. Knowing the panzootic potential of avian influenza viruses, the international community has immediately developed response plans on the eventual spread of the Chinese H7N9 strain and called for emergency preparedness. Upon requests of Member States from Europe and the Asia and Pacific Region, the Animal Production and Health Subprogramme of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division and the IAEA Technical Cooperation Department immediately reacted by taking advantage of the responsiveness of the TC Programme to unforeseen needs of Member States. In addition to the evaluation and validation of diagnostic and surveillance procedures and the transfer of technologies and the diagnostic support, two unplanned training courses were organized on shortnotice under existing technical cooperation projects RER/5/016 (regional European) and RAS/5/060 (regional Asian). The two hands-on group events were conducted to enhance the capacities of specialists from at-risk regions to perform an early and rapid diagnosis and control of this novel H7N9 avian influenza strain. Twenty-four participants from seventeen Member States in Asia and the Pacific Region and twenty two participants from fourteen Member States in the Europe Region attended the two training courses. The events consisted of lectures on epidemiology, risk assessment, differential diagnosis of the H7N9 virus subtypes, sampling and submission procedures (including shipment of pathological samples to the FAO/OIE reference laboratories) and practical training on current, rapid techniques for disease diagnosis, especially with regards to the application of nuclear-based techniques for the identification and characterization of the pathogen. In both cases, the Animal Production and Health Laboratory's facilities at the IAEA Seibersdorf Laboratories were used, which included advanced molecular technological platforms and on-site computer teaching facilities to enable the bioinformatic analysis of avian influenza genomes. Thereby, specialists from the regions had the opportunity to gain an insight into risk assessment and epidemiological knowledge on the virus, while the preparedness and proficiency of Member States' veterinary diagnostic laboratories for similar future events was greatly enhanced