06/23/06 Training for AI

Training for Avian Influenza. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Scientists from 21 nations have been meeting in Iowa this week as part of a USDA sponsored Avian Influenza Diagnostic Training. Dr. Dennis Senne, ARS poultry researcher, says this week´s AI Diagnostic Training will provide education for both global participants and researchers providing training. SENNE: One of the things we certainly want to do is to introduce ourselves to these researchers so that we can start establishing that dialog because obviously there's things we can learn from them. Certainly we want to learn things, how they respond to these outbreaks; what works for them and to see if it's something that we can use in our own system if we ever had H5N1 introduced into the U.S. Anna Rose Ademun Okurut of Uganda´s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries saying her country is especially vulnerable to having wild birds bring avian flu into the country. OKURUT: Uganda is vulnerable because if you look at the global trend of migratory birds and given the fact that now we think that the most likely source of infection is migratory birds, we lie on the migratory routes; about two or three routes. One that comes from the Northern Sudan and one that goes along the East African coast and another one I think that comes from the Egypt side. So all this, we lie in an area where there is migratory routes. And also we have a lot of full swamp and wetlands and also the Lake Victoria Basin is a very good place for birds. And so there is a lot of birds coming there migrating from Europe and into the South of Africa and then back so they pass the same route. And so we are really in a high risk. Jocelyn Brown, with the USDA´s Foreign Agricultural Service, saying the best way to safeguard the U.S. from bird flu is to go after it in countries which currently have outbreaks. BROWN: USDA is leading the U.S. efforts to augment and strengthen animal health infrastructure abroad and to improve the governance and technical capabilities of international organizations such as the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the World Animal Health Organization. Whether or not H5N1 leads to human disease, USDA must carry out its mandate to safeguard U.S. agriculture from the threat of H5N1 influenza. In short, our international efforts represent the frontline battles to safeguard agriculture and mitigate the risk of an influenza pandemic. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.