April 30, 2010

In the Spotlight - The FAO EMPRES Wildlife Unit

Focusing on Understanding the Ecology and Epidemiology of Diseases between Domestic and Wild Animals

The Emergency Prevention System (EMPRES) Wildlife Unit of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) was established to investigate the role that wildlife species play in diseases that impact livestock and agriculture based livelihoods.
With the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 it became apparent that multidisciplinary in-country and regional capacity building was necessary amongst, biologists, veterinarians, ornithologist and others.

The EMPRES Wildlife Unit is leading and facilitating a range of collaborative activities to study the epidemiology and ecology of HPAI H5N1 in wild birds, migratory routes, habitat use and the role wild birds may play in virus introduction and movement.

To learn more about the EMPRES Wildlife Unit visit the FAO website here. From this website visitors will find information about the Wildlife Unit's work with disease surveillance and telemetry.



EMPRES-i Global Animal Disease Information System


To view reported cases of avian influenza along with other diseases, visit the EMPRES-i website. EMPRES-i is a global animal health information system of the FAO's EMPRES programme, that focuses on the user need to easily find and collect in one place all the information available for animal health and transboundary animal diseases.

EMPRES-i compiles, stores and verifies animal diseases outbreaks data (including zoonoses) from numerous sources (e.g. FAO representatives, FAO reports, OIE reports, official government, European Commission, FAO reference centres, and laboratories), for early warning and risk analysis.