Courtesy Photo | Lt. Col. Erin Ball (left), Deputy Chief of Veterinary Medicine and Deputy Science...... read more read more
Subscribe
From 8-16 September 2025, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research-Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences visited Quảng Trị, Vietnam to provide training in veterinary science and zoonotic disease surveillance for Pacific Friendship 2025.
Pacific Friendship 2025 was the inaugural occurrence of a new annual joint exercise between the U.S. Army Pacific and the Government of Vietnam, focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief, medical readiness, civil-military coordination, and continuing the long-standing relationship between the two nations.
WRAIR-AFRIMS supported the exercise’s veterinary team by providing knowledge and training about zoonotic diseases, which are caused by pathogens passed from animals to humans.
“Animal farming and husbandry are important to the economy of Quảng Trị province; however, areas of regular human-animal interaction are also at risk for zoonotic disease,” explained Lt. Col. Erin Ball, Deputy Chief of Veterinary Medicine and Deputy Science Director at WRAIR-AFRIMS. “The goal of the engagement was to provide necessary training on zoonotic disease and food safety.”
The training involved classroom instruction about how to identify common veterinary and zoonotic diseases like African swine fever and avian influenza, practical biosafety exercises like how to properly use personal protective equipment when dealing with animals, and hands-on exercises in biological sampling, zoonotic disease diagnosis, and outbreak response.
“Disease doesn’t care about borders,” said Lt. Col. Ball. “By training and equipping our partner countries, we can collaborate on disease monitoring. It’s a force multiplier for global health that increases our ability to protect not just everyday people but also our service members.”
One of the goals of WRAIR-AFRIMS’ biosurveillance program is to train U.S. partners to monitor for infectious diseases and share data in order to facilitate early detection of infectious diseases, identify disease risk factors, and ultimately prevent future pandemics across Southeast Asia and the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command area of responsibility.
“The training this year was a really great, effective collaboration,” said Lt. Col. Ball. “The inaugural Pacific Friendship was a big success and there is a demand signal for more biosurveillance training from WRAIR-AFRIMS for next year.”
To learn more about WRAIR-AFRIMS, our disease surveillance, and other capabilities, visit our website at https://afrims.health.mil/
| Date Taken: | 04.27.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 04.27.2026 14:59 |
| Story ID: | 563691 |
| Location: | VN |
| Web Views: | 47 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, WRAIR-AFRIMS provides zoonotic disease training at Pacific Friendship ‘25, by Zeke Gonzalez, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
