BANGKOK, Feb 1 (IPS) - Women from ethnic communities in the hilly, northern part of Laos, who have been breeding and growing poultry as a means of livelihood, are also the newest recruits in the struggle against the avian influenza virus.
Their role in their communities is key to an initiative by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) to enlist women as the best defenders of their communities -- and their livelihoods -- against the H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus that has plagued Asia for the last few years.
''Giving women the knowledge and tools to stop the spread of avian influenza is absolutely imperative,'' Manoshi Mitra, senior social development specialist at the AsDB, told IPS from the bank's headquarters in Manila. ''They will be taught how to identify the disease and be equipped with first-aid kits, too.''
''We have to convince them that they are the ones who will lose if there is an outbreak. It will impact them directly,'' she added. ''We want to employ one female poultry worker for every community.''
The AsDB project, which got underway in February, is geared toward helping poverty-stricken ethnic families that are already disadvantaged because they speak a language that is different from the Lao that is spoken by the majority. Some 17,000 households in 400 villages are expected to gain from this initiative.
Across the rest of land-locked Laos, breeding poultry has become the mainstay of village economies. ''It is evident that every family has backyard poultry -- between 10 to 30 chickens per household,'' Abdulai KaiKai, project officer at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) office in Laos, said in an interview from the capital Vientiane. ''The income from the sale of eggs and chicken helps supplement the family income.''
Since July 2006, UNICEF has been leading an awareness campaign in the provinces to stem the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. ''There have been puppet shows and dramas with a bird flu theme that tells people what they should do to stay safe,'' added KaiKai. ''About a fifth of the villages have been covered through this.''
Laos, South-east Asia's poorest country, has proved a mystery since the deadly strain of avian influenza first appeared in the winter of 2003 in this region, and kept reappearing subsequently as temperatures dropped during the northern winters.
It has had very few bird flu outbreaks in its poultry population and none of the country's 5.4 million people have fallen ill, although there have been cases of transmission from animals to humans in other countries.
In contrast, all of its immediate neighbours -- China, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia -- have been hit by the virus.
Vietnam and Thailand are currently grappling with a new outbreak of bird flu. Since the winter of 2003, 42 people have died in Vietnam out of the 93 reported cases. Seventeen people out of the 25 reported cases have died in Thailand, while Cambodia has recorded six deaths from six cases.
There was a minor bird flu outbreak in Laos in March 2004, and most of the 46 poultry farms hit were near Vientiane. A second outbreak occurred in July 2006.
''There has been no evidence since December 2003 that suggests H5N1 is raging through the villages,'' said Tony Williams, avian influenza team leader at the Food and Agriculture Organisation's (FAO) office in Laos. ''Laos has escaped the worst of bird flu.''
What has helped, according to the food agency, is the relative distance of rural communities from each other. ''The relative isolation of villages has been a positive factor in safeguarding the communities from the spread of avian influenza,'' said Williams.
According to the FAO, transporting poultry without proper safeguards is a key factor that fuels the spread of the virus. Indonesia, the country worst affected by avian flu, illustrates this trend. By the end of January, Indonesia had reported 63 deaths out of 81 cases of infection.
''Wild birds are less responsible for the spread of the virus in the current outbreak,'' said Hiroyuki Konuma, deputy head of FAO's Asia-Pacific office. ''Poultry trade and the movement of live birds have played a role in spreading the virus.''
Till the current cycle of outbreaks, now in its fourth winter season, poultry breeding was promoted as an option for women in rural communities to get additional income. ''It was seen as a way for women to start a business and take the first step out of poverty,'' Anni McLeod, senior livestock policy officer at FAO, told IPS. ''It required very little investment, could be managed by women and the turnover was very fast.''
AsDB officials cite Bangladesh as an example where the approach of making women agents of change has worked well in dealing with the bird flu. In that South Asian country, poultry breeding by some 500,000 people, most of them women, had helped transform many poor communities, they say.
They were able to ''put more food on the table, educate their children, and even save enough to lease or buy agricultural land, thanks to an innovative livestock project,'' explianed an AsDB officer. ''The project (trained) women in raising chicks as well as local hens and ducks, managing poultry production and sales, and providing veterinary care.''
Thus, the Manila-based Bank hopes to replicate in Laos the successes in Bangladesh. ''Bangladesh represented a real success story,'' said Mitra. ''It demonstrated the importance of poultry breeding in lifting women and their families out of poverty.'' (END/IPSAP/MMM/JS/07/Copyright IPS)