FAO WWT WI Waterbird Capture and Avian Influenza Surveillance Training Course held at Dagona, Chad Basin National Park, Yobe State, Nigeria 26th October - 13th November 2009 Report to Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Report from Ruth Cromie1, Richard Hearn1, David Paynter1 & Nicolas Tubbs2 1Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Gloucestershire GL2 7BT, UK 2Wetlands International, PO Box 471, 6700 AL Wageningen, The Netherlands December 2009 Contents SUMMARY 2 1 BACKGROUND 3 2 THE COURSE 5 2.1 Aim of the course 5 2.2 Location 5 2.3 Timing 5 2.4 Participants 5 2.4.1 Participant Specification 6 2.4.2 Selection Process 6 2.5 Trainers 8 2.6 Facilities 8 2.7 Accommodation 8 2.8 Food 8 2.9 Daily subsistence allowance (DSA) 8 2.10 Travel and transport 8 2.11 Language 9 2.12 Course structure 9 2.13 Course content 9 2.14 Trapping and avian influenza surveillance equipment 10 2.15 Capture techniques demonstrated and practiced in the field 10 2.16 Avian influenza sampling 12 2.17 Numbers and species of birds captured and sampled caught during the course 13 2.18 Health and safety 13 2.19 Animal welfare 13 2.20 Teaching resources 13 2.21 Certificate of attendance 14 2.22 Feedback and course outcomes 14 2.22.1 Administration and facilities 14 2.22.2 The training 15 2.22.3 Future needs 16 2.23 Debrief meetings 16 2.24 Issues arising 16 2.24.1 Equipment and field guides 16 2.24.2 Organisation of transport prior to the course 16 2.24.3 Number of participants 16 2.24.4 Numbers of birds caught 17 2.24.5 DSA 17 3 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 18 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 19 5 REFERENCES 20 APPENDIX 1 SELECTION CRITERIA FOR PARTICIPANTS 21 APPENDIX 2. CONTACT DETAILS OF PARTICIPANTS 22 APPENDIX 3. TRAINER PROFILES 26 AppENDIX 4. COURSE TIMETABLE 27 APPENDIX 5. CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE 29 APPENDIX 6. FEEDBACK FORM 30 APPENDIX 7: FEEDBACK SUMMARY 33 FAO WWT WI Dagona AI Training Course Report SUMMARY There is a clear need for building capacity for national wild bird avian influenza surveillance programmes particularly in an African context. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the European Commission’s New FluBird project funded a three week advanced waterbird capture and avian influenza surveillance training programme at the Dagona Base Camp in the Chad Basin National Park, Yobe State, northern Nigeria, in October/November 2009. The aim of the course was to build skills of ornithological practitioners and infrastructure to allow long term wild bird avian influenza surveillance to be established in this region of Nigeria and provide skilled personnel for surveillance in the countries of the other African participants. The course trained 31 participants from five mainly Chad Basin countries (Nigeria (23), Niger (2), Chad (2) and also Sudan (2) and Kenya (2)). The course proved to be very successful and was deemed by participants to have fully achieved its objectives and their personal objectives also. The course was run by trainers from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) and Wetlands International (WI). A variety of capture techniques were taught with the main focus on the advanced technique of cannon netting. Cannon netting has the potential to allow the capture of large numbers of ducks (the main target for avian influenza surveillance) and is of particular use in areas where other trapping methods cannot be used. Duplicate sets of avian influenza samples were taken from trapped waterbirds, one set for the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, Nigeria, and one set for the New FluBird partner University of Kalmar, Sweden. Cannon netting is a technical, complex and potentially hazardous trapping technique and successful cannon netters and cannon netting teams require certain key attributes. Many of the already experienced participants proved themselves to be very technically adept and capable bird trappers and with a little extra training within existing experienced cannon netting teams should be competent at being part of a regional cannon netting team capable of both national and international wild bird surveillance programmes. Given the experience of the Nigerian authorities and institutions in dealing with outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, the existing ornithological skills in Nigeria (primarily at the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute, APLORI) and this, and previous, Nigerian capacity building and surveillance work it is proposed that Nigeria becomes a regional platform for future wild bird avian influenza activities. 2 1 BACKGROUND Since 2006 there have been outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in poultry in numerous west and northern African countries (Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Egypt, Sudan and Djibouti) with repeated outbreaks in Nigeria and Egypt. With respect to Nigeria, both poultry imports and wild birds have been implicated in the introduction of infection to this region although no direct evidence for the latter has been established (Gauthier-Clerc et al; 2007, Ducatez et al, 2006; Owoade et al, 2008). Nigeria has an important culture of harvesting and selling wild birds in market situations, where diseases may potentially be transferred between domestic and wild birds. Also, both legal and illegal trade of domestic and wild bird species may serve as mechanisms for virus introduction and spread. Some of Nigeria’s wetlands represent internationally important areas for both Afrotropical and migratory Eurasian waterbird populations. Surveillance in these areas would provide important early warning and information relevant to disease control in both Africa and Europe given the nature of migratory flyways in the region. Interestingly, previous wild bird surveillance in Nigeria has reported cases of HPAI H5N2 in wild waterfowl with no reported concurrent infections in poultry (Gaidet et al, 2008). Globally, wild bird avian influenza surveillance is fraught with complexities. These include: 1. gaps in our understanding of the epidemiology of the virus and the disease in wild birds hence difficulties in design of robust evidence-based surveillance strategies (Which species? When? Where? How?); 2. the difficulties in the practicalities of trapping sufficient wild birds to attain anywhere near an appropriate sample size; 3. the limited skills of personnel trapping birds, taking samples and testing them in OIE/FAO-approved laboratories; 4. the limited infrastructure to allow trapping of wild birds. These limitations are often exacerbated in an African context. Whilst there are many excellent trained African ornithologists, specialist training in advanced trapping methods such as cannon netting which allows relatively unbiased catches of large numbers of birds, has been either non-existent or very limited. There is a clear need to build capacity in trapping and surveillance skills and to provide the infrastructure to conduct sustained wild bird avian influenza surveillance across the region. To answer this need, a joint venture between FAO, Wetlands International (WI) and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) (funded by FAO and New FluBird) was developed i.e. a training course aimed at building skills of ornithological practitioners and infrastructure to allow long term surveillance to be established in this region of Nigeria and provide skilled personnel for surveillance in the countries of the other African participants. Support for this proposed course was voiced at the successful FAO workshop entitled "Interministerial and Cross-Border Collaboration to Address Avian Influenza in Wild and Domestic Birds" held at the Abuja Sheraton Hotel in March 2009, attended by mainly personnel from Ministries of Agriculture and Environment from Nigeria, Niger and Chad. New FluBird is a European Commission-funded project of a network of virologists and ornithologists to provide an early warning system for avian influenza in wild birds for the European Union. The objective is for New FluBird to achieve accurate coverage, sufficient detection and early warning capacity. This latter capacity building aims to enable site(s) to be equipped with appropriate material for obtaining samples and (local) teams to be trained in standardised operation of the equipment, methodologies for gathering and handling of the samples and the shipping to laboratories for virological investigations as per FAO guidelines. Both WI and WWT are partners in this project, the former being the coordinator of the ornithological partners. As part of this project Nigeria and the broader Chad Basin area have been identified as Higher Risk Sites by the New FluBird ornithological partners. Together, with FAO, New FluBird funded this course. FAO, WI and WWT coordinated the course with WWT providing expertise in trapping and surveillance of wild birds. Additionally the A.P. Leventis Ornithological Research Institute (APLORI) represented the in-country ornithological partner who helped supply of equipment and other logistics; and AFRING were invited to help ensure coordination and longevity of capture and ringing programmes in Africa: 1. FAO FAO’s Wildlife Programme, based within the Emergency Centre for Transboundary Animal Diseases (ECTAD) Animal Health Division has been recognized as a global leader in collecting scientific information to determine the role that wild birds play in the maintenance and spread of HPAI. To date, with respect to wild bird avian 3 FAO WWT WI Dagona AI Training Course Report influenza issues, FAO’s