A partnership between the University and Delaware Technical & Community College is providing technical assistance to Romania in controlling avian influenza.

The project is supported by a $424,000 grant administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service through an interagency agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development in Bucharest, Romania.

The yearlong project will operate under the auspices of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ new Avian Biosciences Center, which is directed by Jack Gelb Jr., an avian virologist with experience in avian influenza.

Carla Stone, international education partnership specialist in the Office of the President at Delaware Tech, and George Irvine, program specialist at UD’s Center for International Studies, will coordinate and manage the project.

Romania has suffered a series of avian flu outbreaks since the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus was first detected at a farm in the Danube River delta in October 2005. Another wave of avian flu in May resulted in the death of more than a million poultry from Romania’s backyard flocks and commercial farms.

The Delaware partnership is aimed at helping Romania improve its ability to respond to avian flu, Gelb says.

“The focus will be on coordinating efforts among government agencies, universities and the poultry industry in Romania to increase the efficiency of the country’s national agricultural laboratories, enhance biosecurity protocols in commercial poultry operations and share Delaware’s expertise and experience with avian influenza,” he says. “We also are committed to building a sustainable partnership between Delaware and Romania.”
A centerpiece of the effort is introducing Romanian scientists, policymakers and industry representatives to what U.S. officials refer to as “the Delaware model.”

“‘The Delaware model’ is the combination of observation, communication, cooperation and collaboration among industry, academia and the government that served us so well in controlling avian flu in Delaware in 2004,” Gelb says. “This approach was critical to our success here, and we look forward to sharing it with our colleagues in Romania.”

UD played a vital role in protecting the billion-dollar Delmarva poultry industry in 2004 when the H7N2 strain of avian influenza infected three farms in the area. University poultry scientists quickly diagnosed the virus, coordinated with industry, other universities, and state and federal government to contain it and worked around the clock to test samples from all flocks in six-mile quarantine zones around the three infected farms to make sure the virus had not spread.