The following recommendations are directed to UN staff and their recognized dependents travelling to/through or living in areas where avian influenza A (H5N1) outbreaks among poultry or human H5N1 cases have been reported. These recommendations may be revised as more information becomes available.

Basic Precautions

• To minimize the possibility of infection, observe precautions to safeguard your health. Specifically, travellers should avoid touching live or dead poultry (e.g., chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons, quail) or any wild birds or their faeces, and avoid settings where H5N1-infected poultry may be present, such as commercial or backyard poultry farms and live poultry markets.
  
  
• Do not eat uncooked or undercooked poultry or poultry products, including dishes made with uncooked poultry blood especially in places where you are not sure that proper food precautions have been taken.
  
  
• As with other infectious illnesses, one of the most important preventive practices is careful and frequent hand washing. Cleaning your hands often, using either soap and water (or waterless, alcohol-based hand rubs when soap is not available and hands are not visibly soiled), removes poten-tially infectious materials from your skin and helps prevent disease transmission.