UNICEF/NOA Sensitizes FCT Communities on Bird Flu

According to this report, the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in collaboration with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) organised an avian influenza or bird flu sensitisation workshop for communities in three area councils of Abuja (Abuja Municipal Area Council or AMAC), Kuje, and Bwari in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria.


Participants included village chiefs, school headmasters, council representatives, and UNICEF and federal agency officials. The AMAC chairman acknowledged the stakeholders' concern about the recurrence of avian flu and emphasised the power of information on the proper handling of birds in homes and on farms to check the cases of human incidence.


The director of NOA spoke of the need for collaboration between the government and UNICEF. The plan for workshop participants is to go back to their communities and hold community dialogues on avian flu prevention to pass on the knowledge gained through the programme. Follow-up visits for monitoring purposes are planned by the Head of Planning Research and Statistics of NOA, who is the front desk officer to UNICEF on the programme.