USAID provides avian flu detection equipment to Pakistan
'Pakistan Times' Federal Bureau

ISLAMABAD: United Stated Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) equipment for the Pakistani National Reference Laboratory.

The new equipment will enable the lab to test samples to determine the strain of Avian Flu Virus within 6 hours. The existing equipment requires 24-72 hours.

According to American embassy, by streamlining the process for identifying the disease, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock officials will be able to eliminate unnecessary culling of birds and further reduce the risk of spreading the disease to humans.

Pakistan has had 28 small-scale poultry farms with confirmed cases of H5N1 strain, resulting in the culling of more than 120,000 birds recently.

Ambassador Randall Tobias, the global USAID Administrator, who visited Pakistan recently donated the equipment to the laboratory and praised the work of the National Reference Lab.

Appreciated the laboratory’s hardworking staff, he said with their dedication for the safety of communities, the country did not experience bird-to-human or human-to-human cases of avian influenza.”

The National Reference Lab network was set-up by the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock in 2004 with financial and technical support from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The lab, the only FAO-approved lab for handling the Avian Influenza pandemic in South Asia, is currently funded by USAID and managed by the FAO.

The USAID also recently provided funding to keep the National Reference Lab for Poultry Disease functioning with additional equipment.

The assistance package donated by USAID includes 2,000 sets of personal protective equipment. This equipment protects the Rapid Response teams investigate avian influenza outbreaks and handle infected birds.

USAID is also working with the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the Ministry of Health and the World Bank to finalize a unified action plan for dealing with the Avian Influenza pandemic in Pakistan.

As part of the long term plan to contain the virus, USAID will fund the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to strengthen the Ministry of Health’s ability to investigate and control communicable disease outbreaks.

The United States, through USAID, is providing more than $1.5 billion in development assistance to Pakistan over the next five years to improve education, health, governance and economic growth.

In addition, the United States has pledged a total of $510 million in earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts to assist the people of Pakistan and to support Pakistani government relief and reconstruction efforts.●