A study on the importance of Newcastle disease (ND) in village chickens was conducted among farmers, poultry traders and community leaders using a focus group discussion (FGD) on village chicken production in eight communities of Bauchi State, Nigeria. Participatory epidemiologic tools of proportional piling and pair wise ranking were used by all the participants of FGD to rank by importance common diseases of village chickens in their communities. Disease and predation were identified by all the participants in each community as major constraints affecting village chicken production.
Newcastle disease (ND) is a major limitation to the production, consumption and sales of village chickens in Africa. A pagrticipatory proportional piling exercise was conducted among village chicken farmers selected during focus group discussions held in eight communities in Bauchi State to assess their opinions on vaccination of their village chickens with thermostable Newcastle disease vaccine I-2 (I-2 NDV) and its benefits. The assessment involved 64 participants (8 from each community) whose chickens had received two I-2 NDV three months apart and 12 participants whose chicken had received only one I-2 NDV. Of the 64 farmers who initially were selected and had volunteered to participate in the study, two of the participants were not available to give their opinion on the importance and benefit of vaccination; while, eight of participants did not think the vaccine is important and have chosen not to participate in the assessment exercise. The remaining 54 participants had endorsed the vaccine with a total score of 100% (270/270). They also awarded 91.3% (283/310) of their scores to flock increase due to reduced mortality by I-2 NDV with the remaining 8.7% (27/310) of the scores indicating no flock increase. A probing of the reason why some of these farmers did not experience flock increase revealed the occurrence of fowl pox disease that has killed some of their chickens. The scores from participants whose chicken had received only one vaccine was 100% for both endorsement of the vaccine (60/60) and observation of flock increase (60/60). The study highlights I-2 NDV as an appropriate vaccine that could be used to control ND in village chickens in Bauchi State and beyond.
A retrospective study to determine the completeness and content of monthly disease reports (MDRs) from eight Area Veterinary Offices (AVOs) was conducted at the office of the Director Veterinary Services (DVS) Bauchi State, Nigeria. The result revealed submissions of MDRs made by all the AVOs at the office of the Director Veterinary Services were less than the expected 60 monthly disease reports. Among all the AVOs, Azare had the highest available report that reached 70% of the expected reports, while Shira presented the lowest available MDR of 10%. An observation on the content of MDR showed no uniformity in the format of disease reporting from all the AVOs. The content also showed a total of 1,251,886 cases which were broadly categorized into poultry (225,891) cases and 1,025,995 other livestock cases. There was a significant association in the reporting of livestock cases when compared to poultry cases (p <0001, Chi-square =138600) in all the AVOs. The result showed incompleteness in the availability of MDRs presented by AVOs in the office of DVS which is suggestive of underreporting. The results from this study tend to highlight the need to strengthen monthly disease reporting among AVOs in Bauchi State, Nigeria to enable the office of the Director of Veterinary Services to use the report for early prevention and control of prevailing animal diseases and notification of diseases at national and international level.
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