Biosecurity in Village and Other Free-Range Poultry-Trying to Square the Circle?

Village poultry commonly suffer significant disease related losses and a plethora of biosecurity measures is widely advocated as a means to reduce morbidity and mortality. This paper uses a household economy perspective to assess some "economic" considerations determining biosecurity investments of village poultry keepers. It draws on the 2012/13 Tanzania National Panel Survey (TZ-NPS), which covered 1,228 poultry-keeping households. Disease was the most frequently reported cause of bird losses and, in the majority of households, accounted for more than half of reported bird losses. However, given that poultry rarely contributed more than 10% to total annual household income, for 95% of households the value of birds lost to disease represented <10% of annual income. The value placed on poultry within households may vary by gender and the overall figure may mask differential intra-household impacts. The break-even cost for various levels of reduction of disease losses is estimated using a partial budget analysis. Even if achieved at no cost, a 75% reduction in disease-associated mortality would only result in a one percent increase of annual household income. Thus, to the "average" village poultry-keeping household, investments in poultry may not be of high priority, even when cost-effective. Where risks of disease spread impact on the wider community and generate significant externalities, poultry keepers must be supported by wider societal actions rather than being expected to invest in biosecurity for purely personal gain.

COVID-19 and food systems in Pacific Island Countries, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste: Opportunities for actions towards the sustainable development goals.

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted global food systems. This has led to different strategies by communities, governments, and businesses involved in food systems to mitigate and adapt to the unfolding pandemic. Small Island Developing States are particularly exposed to the conflation of risks from COVID-19 disease, economic downturns, underlying climate vulnerabilities and biosecurity risks. Objective: Our study aimed to identify the food systems vulnerabilities, impacts, and opportunities for supporting resilience and sustainable development in selected Pacific Island countries, Papua New Guinea, and Timor-Leste. The study focused on the impacts from the first six months of the pandemic (February-July 2020), with remote data collection and analysis done between May and July 2020. Methods: We conducted 67 interviews, and triangulated information with desktop and news sources emerging at the time. We present results on the effect on smallholder livelihoods, supply chains, governance, communities and employment. Overall, the major impacts of COVID-19 have been on economies, posing risks to future food security and further hampering progress towards key Sustainable Development Goals. Results and conclusions: We found that unemployment and economic contraction have been the most severe effects to date, with long-term consequences for food value chains and smallholder farmers. Disruptions to tourism, labour migration, and remittances have led to varying socio-economic impacts throughout the region. Vulnerable groups, notably women, urban poor, and youth, have been disproportionately affected by unemployment. Timor-Leste has had some social protection measures, whereas in Pacific Countries these have been varied. The lockdowns and State of Emergency initially influenced the distribution and marketing of food, but local food economies are starting to stabilise. The continued functioning of international food supply chains reduced the risk of food insecurity in high import dependent nations, notably import dependent countries like Tuvalu and Kiribati. Significance: The results have significance for three recovery pathways. The first recovery pathway relates to revisiting value chains in light of restricted travel. The second recovery pathway exists through leveraging the adaptive capacities of communities to stimulate innovative agriculture that also integrates climate adaptation and nutrition. The third recovery pathway relates to addressing the structural challenges that perpetuate inequalities and poverty while finding new ways of implementing inclusive policies and research. Our study presents a set of comparative examples of managing a food system shock that can inform future systems-oriented research and policy for sustainable development.

Detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Sekong Province Lao PDR 2018-Potential for improved surveillance and management in endemic regions.

Significant global efforts have been directed towards understanding the epidemiology of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) across poultry production systems and in wild-bird reservoirs, yet understanding of disease dynamics in the village poultry setting remains limited. This article provides a detailed account of the first laboratory-confirmed outbreak of HPAI in the south-eastern provinces of Lao PDR, which occurred in a village in Sekong Province in October 2018. Perspectives from an anthropologist conducting fieldwork at the time of the outbreak, clinical and epidemiological observations by an Australian veterinarian are combined with laboratory characterization and sequencing of the virus to provide insights about disease dynamics, biosecurity, outbreak response and impediments to disease surveillance. Market-purchased chickens were considered the likely source of the outbreak. Observations highlighted the significance of a-lack-of pathognomonic clinical signs and commonness of high-mortality poultry disease with consequent importance of laboratory diagnosis. Sample submission and testing was found to be efficient, despite the village being far from the national veterinary diagnostic laboratory. Extensively raised poultry play key roles in ritual, livelihoods and nutrition of rural Lao PDR people. Unfortunately, mass mortality of chickens due to diseases such as HPAI and Newcastle disease (ND) imposes a significant burden on smallholders in Lao PDR, as in most other SE Asian countries. We observed that high mortality of chickens is perceived by locals as a new 'normal' in raising poultry; this sense of it being 'normal' is a disincentive to reporting of mortality events. Establishing effective people-centred disease-surveillance approaches with local benefit, improving market-biosecurity and veterinary-service support to control vaccine-preventable poultry diseases could all reduce mass-mortality event frequency, improve veterinary-producer relationships and increase the likelihood that mortality events are reported. Priority in each of these aspects should be on working with smallholders and local traders, appreciating and respecting their perspectives and local knowledge.

Participatory Epidemiology: Principles, Practice, Utility, and Lessons Learnt.

Participatory epidemiology (PE) evolved as a branch of veterinary epidemiology and has been largely employed for the control and early warning of infectious diseases within resource-limited settings. It was originally based on combining practitioner communication skills with participatory methods to facilitate the involvement of animal caretakers and owners (embracing their knowledge, experience, and motivations) in the identification and assessment of animal disease problems, including in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of disease control programs, policies, and strategies. With the importance of understanding social perceptions and drivers receiving increasing recognition by epidemiologists, PE tools are being adapted for an increasingly wide range of settings and endeavors. More recently, PE tools have been adapted for use in food and nutrition security programs, One Health activities, wildlife disease surveillance and as part of mixed-methods research across a range of socio-economic settings. This review describes the evolution of PE (in relation to veterinary epidemiology and briefly in relation to public health epidemiology), the underpinning philosophy and principles essential to its effective application and the importance of gender-sensitive approaches and data triangulation, including conventional confirmatory testing. The article also provides illustrative examples highlighting the diversity of approaches and applications of PE, hallmarks of successful PE initiatives and the lessons we can learn when these are missing. Finally, we look forward, describing the particular utility of PE for dealing with emerging infectious diseases, gaining attention of field-level cross-sector officials who can escalate concerns to a higher level and for continuing to raise the voices of those less-heard (such as women, minority groups, and remote communities with limited exposure to formal education) in defining the problems and planning activities that will likely impact directly on their well-being and livelihoods.

Does Village Chicken-Keeping Contribute to Young Children's Diets and Growth? A Longitudinal Observational Study in Rural Tanzania.

There is substantial current interest in linkages between livestock-keeping and human nutrition in resource-poor settings. These may include benefits of improved diet quality, through animal-source food consumption and nutritious food purchases using livestock-derived income, and hazards of infectious disease or environmental enteric dysfunction associated with exposure to livestock feces. Particular concerns center on free-roaming chickens, given their proximity to children in rural settings, but findings to date have been inconclusive. This longitudinal study of 503 households with a child under 24 months at enrolment was conducted in villages of Manyoni District, Tanzania between May 2014, and May 2016. Questionnaires encompassed demographic characteristics, assets, livestock ownership, chicken housing practices, maternal education, water and sanitation, and dietary diversity. Twice-monthly household visits provided information on chicken numbers, breastfeeding and child diarrhea, and anthropometry was collected six-monthly. Multivariable mixed model analyses evaluated associations between demographic, socioeconomic and livestock-associated variables and (a) maternal and child diets, (b) children's height-for-age and (c) children's diarrhea frequency. Alongside modest contributions of chicken-keeping to some improved dietary outcomes, this study importantly (and of substantial practical significance if confirmed) found no indication of a heightened risk of stunting or greater frequency of diarrhea being associated with chicken-keeping or the practice of keeping chickens within human dwellings overnight.

Family poultry: Multiple roles, systems, challenges, and options for sustainable contributions to household nutrition security through a planetary health lens.

Achieving sustainable production of eggs by family poultry production systems that meet both environmental health and welfare standards is a complex endeavour. Humans have been raising different species of poultry for thousands of years across many different agroecological zones. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has identified four different family poultry production systems: small extensive, extensive, semi-intensive, and intensive. Each of these systems varies in terms of inputs, outputs, gender dimensions, poultry health and welfare, and environmental impacts. This paper addresses key issues associated with the production of family poultry eggs in support of both improved maternal and child nutrition and sustainable, nutrition-sensitive agricultural practices. It provides an overview of the history of poultry raising; characteristics of the different family poultry production systems; challenges and solutions to poultry production in low- and middle-income countries; poultry husbandry (including breeds, nutrition, and shelter); infectious disease prevention and control in line with national and international animal health regulations; and food safety (microbial pathogens, toxins, and egg storage). To ensure that bird, human, and environmental health can flourish, it is essential for interdisciplinary research and development teams to work in collaboration with communities to ensure the long-term environmental and economic sustainability of family poultry production enterprises that are a good fit with local circumstances.

The chicken or the egg? Exploring bi-directional associations between Newcastle disease vaccination and village chicken flock size in rural Tanzania.

Newcastle disease (ND) is a viral disease of poultry with global importance, responsible for the loss of a potential source of household nutrition and economic livelihood in many low-income food-deficit countries. Periodic outbreaks of this endemic disease result in high mortality amongst free-ranging chicken flocks and may serve as a disincentive for rural households to invest time or resources in poultry-keeping. Sustainable ND control can be achieved through vaccination using a thermotolerant vaccine administered via eyedrop by trained "community vaccinators". This article evaluates the uptake and outcomes of fee-for-service ND vaccination programs in eight rural villages in the semi-arid central zone of Tanzania. It represents part of an interdisciplinary program seeking to address chronic undernutrition in children through improvements to existing poultry and crop systems. Newcastle disease vaccination uptake was found to vary substantially across communities and seasons, with a significantly higher level of vaccination amongst households participating in a longitudinal study of children's growth compared with non-participating households (p = 0.009). Two multivariable model analyses were used to explore associations between vaccination and chicken numbers, allowing for clustered data and socioeconomic and cultural variation amongst the population. Results demonstrated that both (a) households that undertook ND vaccination had a significantly larger chicken flock size in the period between that vaccination campaign and the next compared with those that did not vaccinate (p = 0.018); and (b) households with larger chicken flocks at the time of vaccination were significantly more likely to participate in vaccination programs (p < 0.001). Additionally, households vaccinating in all three vaccination campaigns held over 12 months were identified to have significantly larger chicken flocks at the end of this period (p < 0.001). Opportunities to understand causality and complexity through quantitative analyses are limited, and there is a role for qualitative approaches to explore decisions made by poultry-keeping households and the motivations, challenges and priorities of community vaccinators. Evidence of a bi-directional relationship, however, whereby vaccination leads to greater chicken numbers, and larger flocks are more likely to be vaccinated, offers useful insights into the efficacy of fee-for-service animal health programs. This article concludes that attention should be focused on ways of supporting the participation of vulnerable households in ND vaccination campaigns, and encouraging regular vaccination throughout the year, as a pathway to strengthen food security, promote resilience and contribute to improved human nutrition.

Participatory epidemiology: approaches, methods, experiences.

Participatory epidemiology (PE) is an evolving branch of veterinary epidemiology which uses a combination of practitioner communication skills and participatory methods to improve the involvement of animal keepers in the analysis of animal disease problems, and the design, implementation and evaluation of disease control programmes and policies. This review describes the origins of PE and how the application of PE requires attention to both a participatory approach and participatory methods, supported by triangulation of data with conventional veterinary diagnostic methods. The review summarizes the various adaptations and uses of PE, including the design of primary veterinary service delivery systems, veterinary research and disease surveillance. In contrast to conventional data collection methods, an integral aspect PE is the concept of applying and evaluating new disease control programmes or surveillance systems in partnership with animal owners. In the developing regions where PE has been most commonly used, this action-orientated approach raises important challenges for veterinary institutions with limited financial resources. Information derived from PE studies can also question longstanding disease control policies and norms, nationally and internationally.

Participatory disease surveillance and response in Indonesia: strengthening veterinary services and empowering communities to prevent and control highly pathogenic avian influenza.

The participatory disease surveillance and response (PDSR) approach to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Indonesia has evolved significantly from the participatory disease surveillance (PDS) system developed for rinderpest eradication in Africa and Pakistan. The first phase of the PDSR project emphasized the detection and control of HPAI by separate PDS and participatory disease response teams primarily in sector 4 poultry at the household level. Lessons learned during the first phase were taken into account in the design of the second phase of the project, which has sought to further strengthen management of disease prevention and control activities by improving technical approaches, increasing active participation of key stakeholders, including local and central governments, and focusing on the village level. The ongoing evolution of the PDSR program aims to establish a sustainable community-based program within provincial and district livestock services that enhances the prevention and control of not only HPAI, but also other zoonotic and priority animal diseases.

An assessment of chicken husbandry including Newcastle disease control in rural areas of Chibuto, Mozambique.

This paper describes the management practices of village poultry in Chibuto and the impact of the Newcastle disease vaccination program conducted between January 2005 and August 2008. A 51-question survey was conducted in 11 villages involved in the Newcastle disease vaccination program in Chibuto, Mozambique. The mean flock size was significantly higher in households that provided their chickens with feed (15.0) than chickens that only scavenged (8.7; P = 0.0001). The mean flock size was significantly higher in households with vaccinated chickens (16.9) than those with unvaccinated chickens (10.0; P = 0.0005). The average number of chicks hatched during the most recent brooding was significantly higher in households that fed their chickens (9.2) than chickens that only scavenge (6.9; P = 0.0335). The mean hatch rate was significantly higher in households with vaccinated chickens (0.8) than those with unvaccinated chickens (0.7; P = 0.0324). It was determined that unvaccinated chickens are approximately five times more at risk to die of Newcastle disease (odds ratio = 4.79). This study supported the efficacy of the I-2 Newcastle disease vaccine as shown by the increased average flock size and decreased incidence of chicken mortality due to Newcastle disease. The level of farmer involvement and ongoing commitment by community vaccinators suggest that the Chibuto vaccination program is likely to be sustainable in the medium- to long-term.