What We Do

The aim of the Wild Bird Global Avian Influenza Network for Surveillance (GAINS) project is to expand the capacity for field monitoring globally, improve the understanding of viral strains and transmission of influenza viruses in wild birds, and disseminate information to all levels of governments, international organizations, the private sector and the general public.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among others, provided funding to WCS to launch and administer GAINS in 2006. GAINS is a smart and targeted investment in the US government’s fight against HPAI H5N1, since, for example, wild birds can serve as sentinels for early detection of the virus’ presence.

GAINS is an initiative of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), with partners that include US-based and international institutions, foreign governments, NGO’s, universities and businesses. Collaborators in the GAINS network collect and analyze biological samples from wild birds (which are caught and released), to identify locations of avian influenza viral strains. We have collectively trained thousands of individuals worldwide in safe and humane wild bird handling, sampling, and data collection to help understand and control the spread of HPAI H5N1, the viral strain that has caused most avian influenza outbreaks in recent years. Our field teams have collected tens of thousands of samples for H5N1 analysis. Our ornithology and technology experts are helping to link that information with bird census data from more than 105 million bird observations, as well as bird migration routes, via an open access database and mapping system available on this web site. We hope you will explore the mapping system and we welcome your feedback (technology@gains.org).

In short, the GAINS project addresses the potential for the global spread of HPAI H5N1 from all angles, ranging from field science and laboratory work identifying genetic changes in virus isolates, to development of models to predict H5N1 movements, to the policy work of creating early warning systems for diseases that threaten domestic poultry, human health and biodiversity. Working to assess risks in wild natural areas, backyard farms in rural communities, and the illegal wild bird trade in cities and elsewhere, GAINS helps answer the urgent need to control avian influenza and prevent outbreaks.

• Improved early warning disease intervention, technical information and technology transfer due to timely disease information exchange within and between regions, as well as globally;
• The economic losses associated with highly pathogenic avian influenza across parts of Asia, Europe and Africa are estimated to be in the billions of dollars.
• As the virus moves between wild birds, domesticated poultry and people, the potential for a pandemic the likes of the 1918 influenza epidemic that killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide increases. Groups like the WCS are also very concerned about the impacts to biodiversity.
• Avian influenza is a zoonotic disease, which means it can pass between people and animals. More than 60 percent of the approximately 1,400 infectious diseases known to modern medicine are shared between people and animals.
• With few exceptions (such as GAINS), current global disease surveillance efforts are focused primarily on human populations and domestic livestock. No federal or international agency is currently responsible for monitoring and preventing the full array of diseases that cross borders and can be transmitted between domestic and wild animals and people.