Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points Assessment as a Tool to Respond to Emerging Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Edmunds, Kelly L.; Hunter, Paul R.; Few, Roger; Bell, Diana J.

The HACCP assessment of Vietnam's domestic poultry trade followed the first three HACCP principles (described in Table 1) to address our aims [17] . The initial flow chart created during the first stage of the HACCP assessment (see Figure 1 ) was developed based on our long-term research of Vietnam's poultry trade. The flow chart begins with a poultry egg and tracks all the possible routes that this egg could take through Vietnam's domestic poultry trade. This flow chart was then presented to a range of experts for critical analysis; including public health professionals, epidemiologists and wildlife disease biologists. A hazard was considered to be a process within Vietnam's poultry trade providing an opportunity, at an unacceptable level of risk, for the transmission of HPAI either from poultry-to-human or poultry-to-poultry. Based on the frequency with which these hazards occur, they were then grouped into categories of posing a high or low-risk to poultry and/or humans.