AI.COMM - Avian and Pandemic Influenza Resource Link

6
Foreword
Overview
B FINAL REPORT
OVERVIEW
During almost four years of
work in more than 40 countries,
the AI.COMM Project has worked
with USAID to achieve a number
of signifi cant results in controlling
avian infl uenza and preparing
for and responding to the
H1N1 pandemic.
With our partners, we have helped to
create a multi-sectoral preparedness and
response infrastructure that operates at
national, provincial, and district levels and
that reaches across borders. This network of
well-trained and organized government and
community leaders, NGOs and, in some cases,
private sector entities is now empowered and
organized to address pandemic and disaster
challenges – by providing prompt planning,
leadership and communication responses to
pandemic threats as well as preventing active
outbreaks. From the upper levels of decisionmakers
down to the responders on the ground,
an infrastructure that did not exist or was not
operational prior to USAID investment on
avian fl u is now in place, and is functional.
The utility of this network was demonstrated
in the real-life laboratory of the H1N1
pandemic outbreak, when countries that
had been building their capacity for avian
infl uenza easily shifted from H5N1 response
to H1N1 response. The networks of NGOs,
local communities, health workers, private