Reducing Antimicrobial Usage in Small-Scale Chicken Farms in Vietnam: A 3-Year Intervention Study

Abstract

Indiscriminate antimicrobial use (AMU) in animal production is a driver of antimicrobial resistance globally. There is a need to define sustainable interventions to reduce AMU in small-scale production systems, which currently represent the most widespread farming systems in South East Asia and many low- and middle-income countries. We conducted a before-and-after intervention study on a random sample of small-scale chicken farms in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam from 2016 to 2019. The study included a baseline followed by an intervention phase where farmers were provided with regular veterinary advice on flock health and husbandry, as well as antimicrobial replacement products. Of 102 recruited farms (raising >100 chickens per flock cycle), thirty-five (34.2%) entered the intervention phase, whilst the rest stopped raising chickens, mainly due to suboptimal flock performance. Through the implementation of our intervention, chicken flocks reduced levels of AMU by 66% [adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 0.34; p = 0.002) from a baseline of 343.4 Animal Daily Doses per 1,000 chicken-days and decreased weekly mortality by 40% (adjusted HR = 0.60; p = 0.005) from a baseline mortality of 1.60 per 100 birds. Chicken bodyweight increased by 100 g (p = 0.002) in intervention flocks. Our findings demonstrate that the provision of veterinary advice can achieve substantial reductions in AMU in small-scale production systems without compromising flock health and productivity.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of integrated studies on antimicrobial resistance in Vietnam, with a focus on Enterobacteriaceae, from a One Health perspective

“…It has been proposed that higher population and animal production densities are correlated with AMU and AMR [ 124 ]. Recent studies demonstrated to a high-level detail amounts of antimicrobials used in human and chicken production systems in the south of Vietnam [ [7] , [125] , 118 ]. However, there is an existing gap in AMU studies in the northern region.…”

Characterisation of Chicken Farms in Vietnam: A Typology of Antimicrobial Use Among Different Production Systems

“…Drugstores must also to be included in the process of reducing antibiotic usage in Vietnam by improving their awareness and knowledge. Indeed, a three-year intervention study has demonstrated that providing professional advice to farmers on small-scale farms leads to a reduction in ABU (Phu et al, 2021). Currently, there is no surveillance system for ABU and ABR in Vietnam, developing it, is one of the objectives of the NAP.…”

Modelling the impact of antimicrobial use and external introductions on commensal E. coli colistin resistance in small‐scale chicken farms of the Mekong delta of Vietnam

“…The study took place in 19 farms raising chickens for meat located in the districts of Thap Muoi and Cao Lanh, Dong Thap province (Mekong Delta region of Vietnam), as part of the baseline phase of the ViParc research project described in Carrique‐Mas and Rushton ( 2017 ) and Phu et al. ( 2021 ). Briefly, all farmers registered in the two districts and raising more than 100 meat chickens as single age (i.e.…”

“…200–300 farm owners in each district) were invited to participate to the project. 102 farms were included in the ViParc project (Phu et al., 2021 ), among which 19 were randomly selected for this study. These 19 farms correspond to small‐scale commercial productions, with flock size between 100 and 2000 chickens of the same age (all‐in/all‐out system), raised over production cycles of 4–5 months in a dedicated area of the farm, and fed and watered manually.…”