STOP AI

STOP AI helps countries prepare for, respond to, and recover from HPAI outbreaks. The project delivers technical assistance and training, and promotes collaboration between animal and human health professionals.

Animal and human health are becoming ever more entwined with rapid population growth, expansion into environments previously free of human settlement, and intensification of livestock production.

The close proximity of people and animals has led to new and deadly human diseases caused by pathogens of animal origin. Avian influenza is a zoonotic disease of particular concern. In developing countries, where poultry is often an important part of peoples’ diets and a means of livelihood, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1(HPAI) can be personally and economically devastating. Moreover, if the virus causing HPAI develops the ability to spread from human to human, the resulting pandemic will likely be catastrophic for developing and developed countries alike.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Stamping Out Pandemic and Avian Influenza (STOP AI) project works at the nexus of animal and human health. STOP AI works to minimize animal health threats and the risk that HPAI becomes a human pandemic. STOP AI builds developing countries’ capacity to prevent, detect, respond to, and stop HPAI and other zoonotic disease outbreaks, and thereby minimize the resultant economic and nutritional losses. In addition, it addresses select human health aspects of HPAI such as exposure during poultry production and safety measures taken during outbreaks. STOP AI offers a wide range of technical assistance and training services to regional and national governments, municipalities, commercial poultry producers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the world to plan for and prevent outbreaks of HPAI.