National Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness Plan 2006 - 2010

Objectives

The 2006-2010 plan seeks to prepare for, prevent and control highly pathogenic avian influenza and reduce the risk and consequences of an influenza pandemic, recognising its potential health, social and economic effects.[1]It combines animal-health control, human disease surveillance and response, laboratory and clinical-care strengthening, community action, and legal and financial preparedness.[2][3][4][5]

• Prevent and control avian influenza in backyard and commercial poultry through safer husbandry, poultry-movement controls, safe slaughtering and compensation incentives for culling.[2]
• Develop rapid animal-outbreak detection, investigation and response through trained provincial, district and village personnel, improved data quality, stronger laboratories and a sustainable national animal-health system.[2]
• Establish integrated human influenza surveillance and response capacity, beginning with a pilot in three Vientiane hospitals before expansion to provincial hospitals.[3]
• Strengthen laboratory capacity for specimen collection, transport, diagnosis, biosafety and quality assurance, addressing the previous inability of the national laboratory to diagnose influenza locally.[6][3][7]
• Improve clinical preparedness through guidelines and training for triage, case investigation, treatment, hospital and intensive-care admission, infection prevention and control, and mass-fatality management.[4][8]
• Build pandemic readiness through national, sectoral and provincial contingency plans, stockpiles, vaccination planning, public-health interventions, travel measures and communication with mass media.[4][9]
• Strengthen community awareness and reporting through culturally appropriate prevention messages delivered via community organisations, schools, mass media and village-level workers.[4]
• Develop legal and financial frameworks for surveillance, reporting, public-health measures, rapid operational funding and transparent accounting, including revisions to existing laws and regulations where required.[4][5]

Implementation

Implementation is designed as a multisectoral, decentralised programme linking animal and human health, clinical services, laboratories, community systems and communications.[2][3][9]National coordination involves the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, National Committee for the Control of Communicable Diseases, National Avian Human Influenza Coordination Office, National Centre for Laboratory and Epidemiology, hospitals, technical departments and local authorities, alongside United Nations agencies, donors, non-governmental organisations, consumer groups, experts and international partners.[1][10]

• Develop strategy-specific action plans by deploying staff from participating ministries, departments and hospitals, and use the detailed plan to assign priorities, timelines, costs, donor commitments and potential implementation partners.[10][4][11]
• Integrate hospital, laboratory, symptom-based, routine, human-health and animal-health surveillance, using reports from village health volunteers, the public, non-governmental organisations and embassies as additional intelligence sources.[3]
• Train provincial and district rapid-response teams to verify rumours, investigate outbreaks and coordinate human and animal health responses; train village workers to identify and report unusual events in poultry and people.[3][4]
• Upgrade the national reference and public-health laboratory, improve specimen logistics, provide diagnostic equipment, reagents and personal protective equipment, and train field and laboratory staff in biosafety.[3]
• Renovate and maintain central and regional hospital laboratories, assess infrastructure, and develop provincial laboratory quality assurance.[7]
• Establish a National Clinical Care Committee to support clinical guidance and clarify avian-influenza management roles at central, provincial, district and health-centre levels.[8][12]
• Expand care capacity through temporary facilities, maintain essential services during a pandemic, provide antivirals and protective equipment, and train health workers in clinical management and infection control.[4][8][12]
• Coordinate consistent public messages between the health and agriculture ministries, jointly train village health volunteers and veterinary village workers, and use the Lao Women Union, Buddhist organisations, the Blue Box school programme, radio and other established channels.[4]
• Strengthen the Centre for Disease Control Secretariat, establish a single communication and information function, train designated spokespersons in risk communication, and involve private-sector and non-governmental stakeholders in planning.[4]
• Monitor influenza trends, unusual disease rates and severity, risk groups, clusters, and geographical and temporal progression, using findings to guide prevention, control and policy.[3]
• Require rapid notification of suspected human cases to public-health authorities and support surveillance and reporting through an appropriate legal framework.[4]
• Mobilise resources through budget lines, donor support and contingency funding for operational response costs; the plan includes estimated costs for priority and desirable activities, although broader financing assumptions and a complete resource-mobilisation strategy are not specified in the available material.[2][9][8][12]
• Establish rapid fund-disbursement mechanisms, harmonised accounting and transparent reporting procedures, while developing donor-negotiated incentives for essential-service staff and investigation teams.[5]

Monitoring & Evaluation

The plan relies primarily on integrated human and animal surveillance, rapid notification and decentralised outbreak investigation, supported by laboratory strengthening, clinical guidance and legal provisions for reporting. It identifies surveillance gaps and quality-assurance actions, but does not provide a unified indicator framework, evaluation schedule or reporting frequency.[6][3][4][7][5]

• Monitor influenza trends, unusual incidence and severity, at-risk groups, clustering, and the geographical and temporal progression of disease through integrated surveillance systems.[3]
• Improve the timeliness, quality and practical use of surveillance data to guide prevention, control and evidence-informed policy.[2][3]
• Require rapid reporting of suspected human cases to public-health authorities and train provincial, district and village personnel to verify rumours, investigate outbreaks and report unusual poultry and human health events.[3][4]
• Expand influenza surveillance from a pilot in three Vientiane hospitals to provincial hospitals, linking laboratory, symptom-based, routine, human and animal health surveillance.[3]
• Address baseline reporting constraints, including variable epidemiological capacity at provincial and district levels and inadequate communications in some health centres and district offices.[6]
• Strengthen laboratory surveillance, as the national laboratory could not diagnose influenza, did not meet biosafety level 2 requirements, and relied on external reference laboratories to confirm suspected avian influenza specimens.[6]
• Develop laboratory quality assurance for provincial laboratories and assess infrastructure in central and regional hospital laboratories.[7]
• Use clinical, case-detection and infection-control guidelines to support consistent case management and infection prevention across health facilities.[8][12]
• Develop and test pandemic preparedness and response plans at national, sectoral and provincial levels, with priorities and timelines categorised between immediate, resource-dependent, first-year and years-two-to-five activities.[4][11]
• Undertake midline and endline surveys for avian and human influenza activities, although their indicators, reporting arrangements and accountability procedures are not specified.[13]
• Apply transparent, harmonised accounting and reporting procedures, though formal performance indicators, evaluation methods, reporting templates, frequencies and a wider accountability framework are not specified.[5]

Costing & Financing

The plan includes a five-year cost framework and activity-level budgets for surveillance, clinical care, laboratory strengthening, communication, legal and financial arrangements. Financing depends substantially on donor support and commitments, while several extracts do not specify confirmed allocations, comprehensive funding gaps, domestic contributions or economic assumptions.[2][11][9][7][13][5]

• Record a total five-year plan figure of 57,070 in a table reported in United States dollars thousands, alongside priority and desirable activity figures for years one to three and years four to five.[2]
• Identify financing needs for laboratory expansion and biosafety upgrades, surveillance capacity, training, molecular methods, diagnostic equipment, reagents and personal protective equipment.[2][3]
• Include detailed-plan fields for estimated costs, donor commitments, potential implementation partners and financial gaps, although the supplied extract does not provide all underlying numerical values.[11]
• Allocate United States dollar budget lines for clinical-care governance, guideline development and printing, antivirals, infection-control materials, personal protective equipment, training and contingency-related operational costs.[8][12]
• Provide laboratory-related allocations for quality assurance, training materials, infrastructure assessment, renovation, maintenance, equipment and operational costs.[7]
• Record Strategy 3 at 25,713,700 United States dollars, including allocations for workshops, dissemination, surveys, materials development and committed funding.[13]
• Establish mechanisms for rapid disbursement of operational funds and develop a hazard-pay incentive scheme for essential-service personnel, for which costs remained unspecified and donor negotiations were required.[5]
• Note that the 2004 avian influenza investigation, response and management cost approximately 4 million United States dollars; health spending was approximately 12 United States dollars per person, while average per-capita income was 375 United States dollars.[14][6]
• Specify neither a complete resource-mobilisation strategy nor comprehensive financing assumptions across the supplied material.[9][7][5]