A survey on the knowledges, attitudes, behaviours and practices of goat farmers about peste des petits ruminants disease in goats at Haor and bordered areas in Sylhet district of Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND: Contagious and economically devastating, peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a viral disease affecting goats and sheep, causing significant losses in livestock productivity and posing a threat to food security and rural livelihoods worldwide. OBJECTIVES: This study was conducted to assess the status of goat farmer's knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) about PPR disease at Sylhet district of Bangladesh. METHODS: A comprehensive cross-sectional survey, conducted over 11 weeks, targeted 130 goat owners. Following a pilot study with 20 farmers, a set of 17 validated questions on PPR KAP was validated. Data collection was performed through face-to-face interviews by a trained team using KOBO Toolbox, with interpretation of responses based on established thresholds for knowledge (>65%), attitude (>75%) and practice (>70%). RESULTS: Overall, 67.7% of participants demonstrated a good level of knowledge about PPR disease. Males exhibited 1.42 times higher odds of knowledge compared to females (odds ratio = 1.42). The middle age group (31-45 years) showed significantly higher knowledge levels (83.3%, p < 0.001). Within this age group, positive practice levels were also notably higher (54.8%). Those with a higher secondary education background exhibited the most positive practice levels (>80%). Participants whose additional income came from non-governmental organization employment showed a higher positive practice level (71.4%), 1.46 times higher than other income sources. CONCLUSION: Strategic interventions should prioritize female farmers, educational empowerment and collaboration with non-governmental organizations to bolster livestock health and rural livelihoods in Bangladesh as part of national PPR control strategy to fulfil the goals of Office International des Epizooties/World Organization for Animal Health (OIE/WOAH) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) PPR eradication by 2030.

Usage of meat and bone meal in animal, poultry and fish feeds: A survey and risk analysis for the occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND: Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is an emerging zoonotic disease of cattle associated with pathological prion protein (PrPsc ) transmitted via meat and bone meal (MBM). Although Bangladesh did not experience a BSE outbreak but the country could not export animal products to developed countries as has not yet been declared BSE free country by OIE due to lack of scientific risk evaluation for BSE. The objectives were identification of hazard, release and exposure pathways of pathological prion protein through MBM and analysis of risk for the occurrence of BSE in Bangladesh. METHODS: The scientific data were reviewed, hazards were scheduled and surveys were conducted on livestock production system, import of MBM and its use to identify the hazards present in Bangladesh context. The analysis was done by the 'OIE Risk Analysis Framework 2006 and European Union (EU) Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) 2003'. From the historical reviews, import of MBM and its use was identified, as external hazards. RESULTS: The analysis revealed that these hazards had negligible or moderate risk for the introduction of infectious PrPsc as Bangladeshi cattle are vegetarian cattle. No milk replacer was used and use of slaughtered waste in the animal feed industry is absent. Unconsumable bones are processed to produce bone chips, fertilizers and bone meal for poultry feeds. Scrapie was never prevalent in Bangladesh. Therefore, risk from the internal challenge was negligible in Bangladesh for the occurrence of classical BSE. These prevented the propagation of BSE infectivity and eliminated BSE infectivity from the system very fast, if that was present. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that introduction of PrPsc into cattle population of Bangladesh through MBM was very negligible. Therefore, Bangladesh can be considered as BSE negligible risk country.

Growth kinetics of a Vero cells adapted Bangladeshi strain of peste des petits ruminants (PPR) virus in cell culture.

Growth kinetics of a Vero cells adapted Bangladeshi strain of peste des petits ruminants virus was studied in Vero cells to determine maximum virus yield. One-step growth curve was formulated after determining virus in both supernatant (CFV) and cell lysate (CAV) at different time categories by microtitre plate titration in Vero cells and the viral presence was confirmed by real-time RT-PCR. The virus was first detected in both the supernatants and cell pellets at 12 hpi. The virus titre reached its plateau at 72 hpi. Maximum virus titre of CAV was 6.2 log10 TCID50/ml and that of CFV was 5.2 log10 TCID50/ml at 72 hpi. After that, the titer gradually declined, but maintained at 4.5 log10 TCID50/ml in case of CAV and 4.2 log10 TCID50/ml in case of CFV at 96 hpi. It was concluded that the optimum time point for harvesting Vero cell culture is 72 hpi.