Open AccessBiosecurity challenges in the control of avian influenza in Nigeria
Author(s) -
Sandra I. Ijoma,
Ebere Roseann Agusi,
V.I. Ifende,
Onyekachukwu Osemeke,
V.T. Columba
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
sokoto journal of veterinary sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2315-6201
pISSN - 1595-093X
DOI - 10.4314/sokjvs.v18i3.5
Subject(s) - biosecurity , influenza a virus subtype h5n1 , outbreak , sanitation , government (linguistics) , business , personal protective equipment , poultry farming , public health , environmental health , veterinary medicine , disease , medicine , covid-19 , infectious disease (medical specialty) , virology , nursing , linguistics , virus , philosophy , pathology
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) has a devastating impact on the economy especially the poultry industry and it jeopardizes food security and public health. The disease which was first reported in Nigeria in 2006, re-occurred in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019. Inspite of the efforts the federal government has put into eradicating Avian Influenza in the country, the re-occurrence of the disease points to challenges of control efforts by stakeholders. Biosecurity challenges confronting poultry farmers and live bird market operators were implicated in new outbreaks and spread of HPAI. A cross-sectional study was carried out by administering open ended questionnaires to poultry farmers and live bird marketers in 12 States that shared boundaries with States affected by HPAI in 2019. Using the thematic style of qualitative analysis and MS Excel 2016, data and information with common denominators and pattern were collated and grouped. The One Health approach was adopted for this study. This was achieved by evaluating the knowledge of the stakeholders on the spread of Avian Influenza (AI), the biosecurity challenges they faced, their recommended solutions and new preventive or control measures they were willing to implement in order to achieve biosecurity against AI outbreak. The live bird marketers' responses showed their major challenge to be poor commitment to implementing already known biosecurity rules (22%), followed by unavailability of funds (13%) and sanitation problems. The poultry farmers struggled with lack of funds for maintenance (32%), and lack of compliance to biosecurity by farm attendants (24%). Both groups jointly recommended alleviating strategies such as the improvement of stakeholder education, supportive financing and the strengthening of animal health legislations. These new insights would benefit the formulation and implementing effective probiosecurity strategies for the control of avian influenza.
Keywords: Avian influenza, biosecurity, one health, poultry farms, Nigeria