Agriculture Ministry tests bird flu response in national simulation exercise

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries has com­plet­ed the Trinidad com­po­nent of a na­tion­al sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cise de­signed to strength­en the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to re­spond to out­breaks of High­ly Path­o­gen­ic Avian In­fluen­za (HPAI), com­mon­ly known as bird flu.

The ex­er­cise was con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­ga­ni­za­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions (FAO) and the Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly un­der the FAO Tech­ni­cal Co­op­er­a­tion Pro­gramme on An­i­mal Dis­ease Out­break Re­sponse in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, the ex­er­cise formed part of a wider na­tion­al pre­pared­ness ini­tia­tive aimed at im­prov­ing co­or­di­na­tion and emer­gency re­sponse to trans­bound­ary an­i­mal dis­eases.

Vet­eri­nary pro­fes­sion­als, lab­o­ra­to­ry per­son­nel, emer­gency man­age­ment agen­cies, pub­lic health of­fi­cials, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ists and se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ex­er­cise.

The pro­gramme in­clud­ed field re­sponse drills, lab­o­ra­to­ry sim­u­la­tion ex­er­cis­es, risk and out­break com­mu­ni­ca­tions train­ing, and a na­tion­al table­top ex­er­cise in which par­tic­i­pants re­spond­ed to evolv­ing dis­ease out­break sce­nar­ios, co­or­di­nat­ed re­sources and as­sessed na­tion­al re­sponse ca­pa­bil­i­ties.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Sen­a­tor Ravi Rati­ram said the ex­er­cise high­light­ed the im­por­tance of in­vest­ing in pre­pared­ness be­fore a cri­sis oc­curs.

“Pre­pared­ness is not built dur­ing a cri­sis; it is built long be­fore one emerges,” Rati­ram said. He added that the sim­u­la­tion al­lowed au­thor­i­ties to test ex­ist­ing sys­tems, iden­ti­fy op­er­a­tional gaps and strength­en in­sti­tu­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion to en­sure a swift and ef­fec­tive re­sponse to emerg­ing an­i­mal health threats.

Rati­ram al­so stressed that dis­eases such as High­ly Path­o­gen­ic Avian In­fluen­za re­quire a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse in­volv­ing an­i­mal health, pub­lic health, en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment, emer­gency ser­vices and strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

FAO Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Trinidad and To­ba­go (ad in­ter­im) Dr Gillian Smith said an­i­mal dis­ease out­breaks can have se­ri­ous con­se­quences for liveli­hoods, food se­cu­ri­ty, pub­lic health and trade.

Smith said the lessons learned from the ex­er­cise would con­tribute to stronger na­tion­al re­silience and more ef­fec­tive emer­gency re­sponse sys­tems, not­ing that suc­cess­ful cri­sis man­age­ment di­rect­ly af­fects the liveli­hoods of farm­ers.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries said the ex­er­cise re­flects FAO’s con­tin­ued tech­ni­cal sup­port in strength­en­ing vet­eri­nary ser­vices and emer­gency pre­pared­ness while pro­mot­ing an­i­mal health sys­tems that meet in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dards.

The min­istry reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to work­ing with lo­cal, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to strength­en dis­ease sur­veil­lance, emer­gency pre­pared­ness and co­or­di­nat­ed re­sponse mech­a­nisms aimed at pro­tect­ing the coun­try’s live­stock and poul­try sec­tors and safe­guard­ing food se­cu­ri­ty.