PREVALENCE AND CLINICAL PICTURES OF DUCK PLAGUE IN MATLAB UPAZILLA, CHANDPUR

Abstract

The study was conducted during the period of 27th June to 26th August, 2010 at Upazilla Veterinary Hospital (UVH), Matlab under Chandpur District. In this long study (two months) period 40 ducks were examined of which 24 were tentatively diagnosed as duck plague on the basis of thorough-clinical inspections and post mortem investigations. The prevalence of duck plague was determined on the basis of area of outbreak, season of occurrence, age of disease susceptibility and vaccination status. Sick or dead Ducks from 5 unions were registered to the hospital of which 3 (Bordia, Nobokalas, and Narayanpur union ) had duck plague prevalence ~60% and one (Upadi union ) had 20%. No duck plague cases were recorded in the other (Belti union) union. However, because of small sample size (40 ducks) this difference in prevalence was not statistically significant (p=0.24). The prevalence was higher in July 65.4% compared with August 50%. Once again the association did not vary significantly (p=0.27).Between two age groups the highest (85%) prevalence was found in >30 weeks of age of ducks and the lowest (35%) prevalence was found in <30 weeks of age. The disease was significantly higher in the older birds (p<0.05). The prevalence of duck plague was 37.5% in the vaccinated ducks, proportionately lower than that of 65.6% recorded in non-vaccinated ones. But the lower prevalence in the vaccinated ducks was not statistically significant (p=0.15). A small size (40 ducks) of this study might be the reason of not finding any difference of the disease between the vaccinated and the non-vaccinated ducks. The investigation exhibited an epidemiological fact that the higher prevalence of Duck plague virus in duck was found around the river side union and in the rainy (Month of July ) season where free flowing waters are available .But lower prevalence was found in unions far from river & at the end of rainy ( Month of August) season.