VM Professor Helps Bring Change to Mongolia

Blacksburg , VA - 1/10/07 - Dr. Bill Pierson, an associate professor in the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, recently returned from a trip to Mongolia where he provided training in biosecurity, food safety and avian influenza for local veterinarians in the developing country.

This was the fourth time Dr. Pierson has traveled to Mongolia. He first visited in 1996 when he spent time teaching disease prevention and food safety procedures to personnel working with the one large poultry company in the country's capital of Ulaanbaatar.

In 1997, he and wife Mary Ellen, an information technology professional, returned to the country to design a Web site server that linked the country's veterinary school with veterinary schools in the U.S.

In 2004, Dr. Pierson returned to Mongolia to assist with development efforts, this time with a veterinary student who was conducting a training clerkship in corporate and government veterinary medicine.

World health officials have recently become very interested in helping the Mongolia people identify early signs of a possible outbreak of avian influenza, according to Dr. Pierson, because Mongolia is on a major bird migration route that extends from Southeast Asia to Siberia. Pierson hopes that his work will help the country prepare for an emergency should one arise.