Poultry farmer response to disease outbreaks in smallholder farming systems in southern Vietnam
Abstract
Avian influenza outbreaks have been occurring on smallholder poultry farms in Asia for two decades. Farmer responses to these outbreaks can slow down or accelerate virus transmission. We used a longitudinal survey of 53 small-scale chicken farms in southern Vietnam to investigate the impact of outbreaks with disease-induced mortality on harvest rate, vaccination, and disinfection behaviors. We found that in small broiler flocks (≤16 birds/flock) the estimated probability of harvest was 56% higher when an outbreak occurred, and 214% higher if an outbreak with sudden deaths occurred in the same month. Vaccination and disinfection were strongly and positively correlated with the number of birds. Small-scale farmers – the overwhelming majority of poultry producers in low-income countries – tend to rely on rapid sale of birds to mitigate losses from diseases. As depopulated birds are sent to markets or trading networks, this reactive behavior has the potential to enhance onward transmission.
Data availability
The study dataset is available online at the Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/ws3vu/.
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Poultry Population and Farm Management Dynamics - Ca Mau - VietnamOpen Science Framework, 10.17605/OSF.IO/WS3VU.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Wellcome (098511/Z/12/Z)
- Maciej F Boni
Defense Threat Reduction Agency
- Maciej F Boni
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: The research collaboration was approved by the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Ho Chi Minh City, and the study design was approved by the Ca Mau sub-Department of Livestock Production and Animal Health. The Ca Mau sub-Department of Livestock Production and Animal Health (CM-LPAH) specifically approved this study and is equivalent to an Animal Care and Use Committee that approves studies like this in Vietnam. CM-LPAH approved the publication of these results. No consenting process was required as the study involved no human biological samples, no patients, and no personal or identifiable information. The IRB that made this determination was the Hospital for Tropical Diseases Scientific and Ethical Committee (Ho Chi Minh City).
Copyright
© 2020, Delabouglise et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
Background:
The role of circulating metabolites on child development is understudied. We investigated associations between children’s serum metabolome and early childhood development (ECD).
Methods:
Untargeted metabolomics was performed on serum samples of 5004 children aged 6–59 months, a subset of participants from the Brazilian National Survey on Child Nutrition (ENANI-2019). ECD was assessed using the Survey of Well-being of Young Children’s milestones questionnaire. The graded response model was used to estimate developmental age. Developmental quotient (DQ) was calculated as the developmental age divided by chronological age. Partial least square regression selected metabolites with a variable importance projection ≥1. The interaction between significant metabolites and the child’s age was tested.
Results:
Twenty-eight top-ranked metabolites were included in linear regression models adjusted for the child’s nutritional status, diet quality, and infant age. Cresol sulfate (β=–0.07; adjusted-p <0.001), hippuric acid (β=–0.06; adjusted-p <0.001), phenylacetylglutamine (β=–0.06; adjusted-p <0.001), and trimethylamine-N-oxide (β=–0.05; adjusted-p=0.002) showed inverse associations with DQ. We observed opposite directions in the association of DQ for creatinine (for children aged –1 SD: β=–0.05; pP=0.01;+1 SD: β=0.05; p=0.02) and methylhistidine (–1 SD: β = - 0.04; p=0.04;+1 SD: β=0.04; p=0.03).
Conclusions:
Serum biomarkers, including dietary and microbial-derived metabolites involved in the gut-brain axis, may potentially be used to track children at risk for developmental delays.
Funding:
Supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Health and the Brazilian National Research Council.
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- Epidemiology and Global Health
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