As avian flu endemic and neighbouring countries enhance the knowledge base of education, training, and behaviour change strategies through communication projects, work is also being done on regional, national, and international levels to both give support for increased communication and glean and disseminate lessons learned. This issue of The Drum Beat focuses on recent projects, international collaborative efforts, and barriers to efficacy in avian influenza and pandemic flu communication.
Please see our Avian Influenza Theme site - where communication and media are central to the eradication of Avian Influenza. Send your avian influenza communication projects, reports, strategic thinking, and resources to Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com
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COUNTRY PROJECTS
1. Play on Bird Flu Takes Wing - Manipur Vet Department Falls Back on Entertainment to Raise Awareness – India
The medium of Shumang Lila (courtyard plays) is being used by the State of Manipur's veterinary department to spread awareness about avian influenza. The play, Aruba Echel, revolves around a veterinary doctor working in a village in the interiors of Manipur and is the result of collaboration between the veterinary department and the Peace Maker Artistes' Association. The play is written to address multiple issues of local concern so as to keep audience interest high while arousing awareness of preventative measures to combat avian influenza.
2. Avian Influenza Task Force to Conduct Info Caravan in Siargao - Philippines
Though avian influenza has not yet appeared in the Philippines, the Avian Influenza Task Force (AITF), which is being spearheaded by the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA), has conducted an information caravan in Siargao, an island on the east side of the archipelago, to increase awareness among the participants on the different strategies needed to prevent and control the disease. Through an orientation and the dissemination of recent updates on avian influenza, the caravan was intended to provide information on the prevention measures that are being implemented by the DA and to develop the participants' capability to respond to a suspected avian influenza outbreak.
3. Perception, Capacity and Role of Frontline Workers as Communicators for the Animal Health Aspect of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza - Vietnam
Launched in July 2007, this initiative draws on the involvement of the agricultural sector in raising awareness amongst Vietnam's farmers about the animal health aspects of avian influenza. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Vietnam is working to empower veterinarians, para-veterinarians, and frontline agricultural workers with communication tools - and to draw on their experience - to deliver messages to farmers. Based on the information obtained from rapid assessment research, FAO Vietnam then created a set of sample printed materials, revising these materials on the basis of the results of the pre-test. Face-to-face communication is also used to ensure that farmers and their families are reminded and better informed about the risk factors associated with high-pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
Contact: Aphaluck Bhatiasevi aphaluck.bhatiasevi@fao.org
4. What Is AI? Film-Based Avian Influenza Initiative - Indonesia, Laos
This initiative centres on a series of mini-documentaries created in Indonesia that are designed to outline the basics of avian influenza (AI) and its transmission. Created by the United States (US)-based AED's Avian Influenza Behavior Change Communication (AI-BCC) project, the film is at the centre of a larger, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)-sponsored effort to train village chiefs in using the film to reach family poultry farmers and the public. An adaptation of the film was then created for the Laos context. Specifically, organisers originally prepared the 4 short film modules as public service announcements (PSAs). These modules were then linked together to create a 12-minute video/film called "What is AI?", which features animated graphics in an effort to clearly illustrate how the virus can transmit not only from bird to bird directly, but also how it can live in the environment and be transmitted indirectly as well.
Contact: Anton Schneider anton.schneider@gmail.com OR Pearl Ang pang@aed.org
5. The Model Poultry Farm Program (MPFP) - Moldova
The Model Poultry Farm Program (MPFP) was an effort to prevent the appearance and spread of avian influenza by providing approved housing for domestic poultry flocks. The project supported the rural population in the creation of model poultry farms that were located near a farmer's home. An information and promotion awareness campaign was carried out, in parallel with the construction of the poultry houses, which included information brochures, information seminars, and on-the-spot presentations. In addition, rural inhabitants were informed about model poultry farms through mass media presentations on television and radio and through national and regional newspapers.
Contact: info@moldova.cnfa.org
6. Avian Influenza and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response (AIHP) - Turkey
This project is an effort to minimise the threat to humans and the poultry industry in Turkey posed by avian influenza and other zoonoses in domestic poultry, and to prepare for, control, and respond to influenza pandemics and other infectious disease emergencies in humans. The project consists of the following 3 main components: i) Animal Health, ii) Human Health, and iii) Public Awareness and Coordination Support. Within the scope of AIHP, in order to assure structural change in backyard poultry and to develop bio-security measures in the poultry sector, 3 pilot behaviour change projects are in development, including: providing information kiosks in rural markets; improving risk perception in bio-security for small and medium scale egg and broiler enterprises; and raising avian influenza awareness for users of wetlands.
Contact: Halil Agah hagah@worldbank.org OR Tunya Celasin tcelasin@worldbank.org
7. Surveillance and Control of Human Cases of Avian Influenza: Provisional Guidelines for Public Health Services in Ukraine
This document, prepared as a joint project of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine and PATH, gives general recommendations for the human avian influenza surveillance system as a whole, supplies medical information for the public surveillance and treatment system, and includes specific sections devoted to communication with the public, as well as infection control in health facilities. It was created to be appropriate for the current and the next stages of pandemic preparedness (phases 3 and 4 of the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Alert Period) and is designed primarily for health care personnel working at sanitary-epidemiological stations.
8. Health Systems Strengthening in Cambodia (HSSC) Avian Influenza Project
This avian influenza prevention programme, which is a component of a larger effort to address various health issues in Cambodia (HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and family health) focuses on a package of communication-centred interventions designed to raise public awareness and build capacity to address an infectious disease. Creating synergy with partners is the key approach, and includes: in-person capacity building that features infection control training that covers topics such as case management, proper infection control procedures, care for patients in isolation, and transportation of patients to and within hospitals. . This training also includes simulation exercises for disaster preparedness. In addition, organisers are sharing information through printed materials, for example, the Ponleu Sokhapheap (PSP) quarterly health magazine "Health Messenger".
Contact: Ms. Peggy Cook pcook@urc-chs.com
9. Communication for Avian and Pandemic Influenza in Indonesia: School Programme - Indonesia
In November 2007, UNICEF launched a school-based campaign designed to raise awareness among children as to the dangers of coming into contact with poultry/birds and the importance of reporting to authorities. UNICEF is working in 50,000 schools that are part of the organisation's Creative Learning Communities for Children (CLCC) programme. Each school is to receive a kit complete with a variety of educational tools that were specially developed using characters from a popular local TV series ("Bajaj Bajuri and Oneng's Salon"). In addition, teachers are participating in orientation sessions designed to help them understand the programme and to familiarise themselves with the school kits. In some districts, educators have developed curricula that includes poetry, art, math, and language classes that incorporate avian influenza information.
Contact: Muktita Suhartono msuhartono@gmail.com
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PLEASE VOTE in our Avian Influenza POLL:
Which communication tool and/or strategy is most effective in addressing Avian Influenza? And Why?:
- Public information campaigns (printed materials and mass media).
- Personal contact with farmers and agricultural extension workers.
- School-based education.
- Public debate on best responses.
- Other [please VOTE, then add comments in the form provided below the poll]
VOTE and COMMENT - click here - Top Right side of the website.
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INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
10. Humanitarian Pandemic Preparedness (H2P) Initiative
This initiative is a collaboration of several United States (US)-based organisations that are working to develop a communication-centred, community-based pandemic preparedness planning initiative in Africa. The H2P Initiative draws on an international partnership designed to equip local (African) organisations to work together to raise public awareness about, and implement plans to prevent and offset, a possible avian influenza pandemic. These organisations will work to:
- support the development of influenza pandemic preparedness plans and protocols of the humanitarian sector in the areas of health, food security, and livelihoods;
- strengthen the in-country capacities of staff and volunteers of humanitarian and civil society organisations (CSOs) to carry out these plans and protocols; and
- ensure functional coordination between global, national, district, and community level stakeholders, including the United Nations (UN) system, in preparedness and response of the humanitarian sector.
Contact: Eric Starbuck estarbuck@savechildren.org OR Kathryn Bolles kbolles@savechildren.org
11. Media/Materials Clearinghouse Avian Influenza Communication Materials
The Media/Materials Clearinghouse (M/MC) is an international resource of health communication materials, including: pamphlets, posters, audiotapes, videos, training materials, job aids, electronic media, and other media/materials designed to promote public health. Through the Health Communication Materials Database, users can search materials by country, subject, medium, or language. M/MC has created a resource of avian influenza communication materials that can be downloaded and used in appropriate settings around the world.
12. Avian Influenza: Critical Program Issues
This Global Technical Brief opens with a background update, including bird flu statistics from January 29 2008, as well as current public health standards for pandemic prevention. A "Programmatic Considerations" section discusses the efficacy of antiviral drugs as a preventative response. The document concludes with recognition of the role of strategic communication, avian influenza protective practices, information sharing, and political commitment. It states that "warning fatigue" may present a challenge to risk communication, and that "threat efficacy" models may lead to effective results.
BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
13. A Bird Flu Over the Commie Nest
by Abhijit Banerjee
Using the avian flu epidemic of West Bengal, India, as an example, the author comments on people's belief or disbelief in government crisis warnings and how disbelief stems from already-undermined state authority. In this case, lack of trust has resulted in hiding birds and driving them across state borders to sell them, and has necessitated on-the-spot government compensation, rather than promise of payment, for the culling of poultry. He traces the public reaction to their perception of government credibility - or lack of credibility - in representing the public interest in the kind of crisis that allows no time for public debate or popular mandate. He states that the problem in Indian politics is that as it becomes more competitive and focused on winning, it becomes "harder and harder for the parties to rise above their partisan commitments and to acknowledge the authority of the state." He sees local non-cooperation in bird flu prevention as a result: "[W]e seem to be flirting with what might be the first great public health crisis of this millennium."
14. Continuing Challenges Regarding Influenza Pandemic Preparedness
This document is a presentation for the UNICEF Workshop with Emergency Focal Points. The presentation reviews the history of United Nations and UNICEF involvement in avian flu and pandemic preparedness and communications since 2005. It lists the 2008 priorities as:
- multi-sector, multi-stakeholder, and multi-economy pandemic preparedness, particularly within highly decentralised economies (with a focus on community resilience and humanitarian preparedness)
- joint working between governments, the private sector and voluntary organisations
- tracking inter-country planning through joint action (scientific cooperation, exercises and responses)
- longer-term preparation for emerging diseases outbreaks and pandemics (human, animal, environment interface).
15. Officials Being Pressurised to Hide Information about Virus
This online news article from Karachi, Pakistan, reports dissatisfaction among officials of the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) with international media coverage of the impact of the presence of bird flu in Pakistan and India. An official of the poultry industry states that since avian flu was reported in 1997, fears about it being a pandemic have decreased because, according to the official, there is a belief that when the virus is mutated, it may die, or become weak. Officials of the poultry industry report facing hostility from farm owners as a result of this perception, the lack of focus from the news media, and daily industry losses of around Rs300 million per day.
16. Planning for an Influenza Pandemic: Social Justice and Disadvantaged Groups
This paper builds from historical evidence from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic indicating that lower social classes and oppressed groups had higher mortality rates than the dominant or ruling population and suffered more from severe social and economic disruption. It examines the application of social justice to the situation of a pandemic and asks for attention to groups characterised by severe economic poverty or subordinate social status and power in the context of planning for and responding to a pandemic. Its specific analysis is of national pandemic planning using criteria set forth in a checklist created from the bio-ethics principles set forth by the Bellagio Group.
17. Major Issues and Challenges of Influenza Pandemic Preparedness in Developing Countries
According to this article, based on the premise that better preparedness for an influenza pandemic mitigates its impact, many countries have started developing and implementing national influenza pandemic preparedness plans. However, developing countries encounter unique and difficult issues and challenges in preparing for a pandemic. Deaths attributable to an influenza pandemic could be substantially higher in developing countries than in industrialised countries. Pharmaceutical interventions such as vaccines and antiviral agents are less likely to be available in developing countries. The public health and clinical infrastructure of developing countries is often inadequate to deal with a widespread health crisis such as an influenza pandemic.
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This issue was written by Julie Levy.
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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com
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