SAIDR: Partners

Egypt Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (MALR)

Including its units the General Organization for Veterinary Services (GOVS); and the National Laboratory for Veterinary Quality Control on Poultry Production (NLQP) within the Agricultural Research Center's Animal Health Research Institute.

Egypt Ministry of Health (MOH)

Including its Preventive Sector including its Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance Unit (ESU)

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. FAO help developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all. Since its founding in 1945, FAO has focused special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world's poor and hungry people.

FAO's various departments implement and coordinate field activities in close cooperation with technical departments, decentralized offices and member nations and ensure that through this collaboration, FAO projects and programs respond effectively to issues that impact on the lives of rural people. Since HPAI was first reported in Viet Nam in December 2003, FAO has taken a lead role in coordinating the international response to the spread of the disease in animals. Through its Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD), FAO has been supporting surveillance and disease-control efforts in infected countries and has assisted non-infected countries in reducing the likelihood of the disease introduction and in preparing a rapid and effective response if the disease is detected. The ECTAD Unit in Egypt was established in 2007 in response to the HPAI introduction in the country.

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) recognizes the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (AI) virus as a threat to public health, economic stability, and development in affected countries. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form capable of causing a human influenza pandemic. To help combat AI and mitigate a potential human pandemic, USAID is fully engaged in the U.S. Government’s efforts to ensure a well-coordinated and strategically sound response to help contain AI in animals and limit its spread to humans, thus lessening opportunities for the virus to mutate. In addition to coordinating with U.S. Government partners, USAID works closely with host governments and international and private-sector partners, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), to support AI interventions.

For more information, visit the USAID Global Health Web Site.

Communication for Healthy Living (CHL)

The Communication for Healthy Living project (CHL) provides technical assistance on strategic communication for behavior change related to avian influenza under the SAIDR Project and is responsible for developing and facilitating implementation of all communication programs addressing SAIDR intermediate results 3.1, Improve awareness of avian and pandemic influenza, and 3.2, Decrease high-risk behaviors associated transmission of H5N1 among birds and humans.

Communication for Healthy Living is the cross-cutting behavior change communication project under USAID's Strategic Objective 20, "Healthier, Planned Families." The CHL project, begun in 2004, is a USAID-supported collaboration between the Egyptian Ministry of Health and Population and the Ministry of Information-State Information Services, Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation with technical assistance provided by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs.