Community-based surveillance in the news

Just a small break from H1N1 reporting - the AI Daily Digest had two good descriptions of community-based surveillance in Indonesia and Bangladesh (next post)

July 2009 FAO AIDE News - Operational Research in Indonesia for More Effective Control of Avian Influenza? commenced in Indonesia in July 2008. Funded by USAID and the World Bank, the project aims to develop an evidence base for the selection of effective and feasible control alternatives in backyard poultry in Indonesia. These alternatives include mass voluntary
vaccination against avian influenza (AI), and AI plus Newcastle disease and are implemented in the context of ongoing field Participatory Disease Surveillance and Response (PDSR) activities. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is supporting local government and the Ministry of Agriculture to implement the control strategies, and providing ongoing support for PDSR field activities. The FAO team works in close collaboration with JSI Deliver (responsible for procurement of vaccine, cold chain equipment and vaccination supplies, and providing logistical support for project implementation) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) (responsible for the design of ORI HPAI, supervision of data collection and analysis of the research results).

FAO has worked with national and local animal health services to train 64 district officers in
16 districts of West Java, Central Java and Yogyakarta provinces as trainers of community
vaccinators and community mobilisers. In collaboration with JSI, FAO has also trained these
district officers in cold chain and logistics management, and continues to provide technical
assistance, logistics support, monitoring and refresher training to these officers and the
vaccinators they have trained.

Community vaccinators play a key role in the project. Under the supervision of the district
livestock authorities, the vaccinators work at local level to organize the vaccination
campaigns which are carried out four times a year.

Before the campaigns, they discuss the benefits of vaccination with members of their communities and encourage poultry owners to vaccinate their birds. They liaise with local animal health authorities to ascertain the disease status of the villages they are to vaccinate and during the campaigns, they ensure that there is sufficient good quality vaccine for the vaccinations through careful planning and cold chain management. After the campaigns they report the results to their supervisors. Since the first vaccination campaign in July 2008, 1,088 vaccinators have administered approximately 20 million doses of AI vaccine and 10 million doses of Newcastle disease vaccine to village poultry.

In Temanggung district, one of the 16 districts participating in the Operational Research Project, several of the persons selected and trained as community vaccinators are also Village Avian Influenza Coordinators (VAIC). VAIC are community level volunteers trained by the USAID-funded Community-Based Avian Influenza Control Project, implemented by Development Alternatives Inc. The VAICs form part of the passive surveillance network that is so important to the PDSR program. As Community Vaccinators, the VAICs receive training about diseases affecting village poultry, disease control measures, the use of vaccination as a tool in disease control, cold chain management and waste disposal, community mobilisation and the practical aspects of vaccination. This complements their knowledge and experience as VAICs and has enabled them to be more effective in working with PDSR officers, poultry owners and helping to raise awareness of HPAI and its effects on poultry and communities. This increased range of activities complements the PDSR program and contributes to the overall HPAI Control Program.

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