Poultry Trading and Farm Biosecurity Status: Introduction of Avian Influenza to Broiler Farms in Chittagong, Bangladesh

Abstract

To meet Bangladesh’s ever-growing protein demands, the poultry industry has dramatically increased its intensive farming practices, contributing significantly to its share of the gross do¬mestic product. However, infectious diseases have greatly threatened the stability of the poultry industry. Poultry farmers largely rely on vaccination protocols to prevent and control of infectious diseases and do not consider typically farm hygiene and other biosecurity practices for this purpose. Therefore, the present study was con¬ducted to assess the role of poultry trading and broiler farm biosecurity status in the occurrence of avian influenza on broiler farms in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Bio¬security Principle 1 Isolation requires farms to be at a certain distance from different objects: Neighbouring poultry farms, backyard poultry farms, live bird markets, residential areas, waste disposal facilities, ponds, water bodies and large trees. However, 46-98% of broiler farms (N=39) did not meet this requirement. Under Principle 1, the major¬ity of the broiler farms did not have a protective fence, main lockable gates, bird proof netting (67%) and a safe dead bird disposal system (67-74%). A risky practice observ¬ed during this study was farm personnel visiting other farms, affected during a disease outbreak (23%). Many farms (33-82%) did not have pest management or other animal control systems in place. Biosecurity Principle 2 Good Farm Hygiene was observed at the majority of farms, such as “used litter” not stored near clean litter (72%), litter remov¬al equipment disinfected properly after each use (85%), sheds swept thoroughly after litter removal (100%), letting the shed to dry ≥ 2 weeks after cleaning and final disin¬fection (84%). Personal hygiene practices on farms were rea¬sonable such as: a) man¬dated employee washing and changing clothes (54%), b) sepa¬rate pairs of sandals must be used for each shed (54%) and c) hands must be cleaned before and after use (55%). However, most of the farms did not have foot baths (92%). So, hygienic con¬ditions were not maintained. Biosecurity Principle 3 Good Farm Management Prac¬tices was observed to be lacking on many farms with 56-67% farms not having a structured paper-based record keeping system. However, the all-in-all-out system principle was followed for 92% farms. After-trading had no effect on the introduction of AI to the studied farms. Only H9 subtype was found in the study. Items and/or practices involving biosecurity Principles 1 and 3 need sub¬stantial improvement to prevent the introduction of infectious poultry diseases like avian influenza.