Abstract
Village poultry closely interact with wild birds and other livestock in extensively managed poultry flocks, a practice common in pastoral communities of Nigeria. This practice provides sustained dissemination of avian viruses, such as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus. The objectives of this study were to assess their knowledge/awareness, risks identification and biosecurity measures on HPAI H5N1 in pastoral poultry flocks. A questionnaire‐based cross‐sectional survey was conducted in systematically selected pastoral households of North‐central Nigeria between May 2015 and June 2016. A total of 422 pastoralists participated in the study. Mean age of the respondents was 54.7 ± 11.4 SD years and 36.0% of them were in age group 50–59 years. The majority (81.3%) of respondents were of the Fulani tribe. Also, 64.9% of the respondents had no formal education and only 6.9% had tertiary education. About 30.8% of the nomadic and 81.0% of sedentary pastoralists significantly mentioned avian influenza to be a zoonotic disease. Very few nomadic (10.9%) and sedentary (26.1%) pastoralists significantly reported restriction of birds’ movement to nearby water bodies as biosecurity measure. Only 7.6% of the nomadic and 16.1% of sedentary pastoralists practiced keeping of birds according to species. Sedentary pastoralists were more likely to have significant knowledge about HPAI H5N1 than the nomadic (OR: 1.76; 94% CI: 1.19–2.61). Female pastoralists were more likely to practice significant biosecurity measures against HPAI H5N1 than the males (OR: 1.99; 95% CI: 1.28–3.09). The majority of pastoralists neither possessed adequate knowledge about avian influenza nor applied adequate biosecurity measures against it, which are the most challenging gaps. Education of pastoralists on HPAI virus infection, specifically on information about clinical signs of avian influenza in birds, transmission dynamics among different species of birds, flyways of migrating wild birds and adequate mitigation measures are recommended.
Highlights
The poultry population in Nigeria is estimated at 165 million, with backyard or ‘village’ poultry population, including those kept by pastoralists, constituting 84% (Federal Livestock Department (FLD) 2010; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 2015)
Previous epidemics of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 that occurred in Nigeria between 2006 and 2008 affected 25/37 of the states in the country, with the destruction of millions of poultry and approximately 5.4 million USD paid in compensation by the Government of Nigeria (FAO 2015)
Following a recent global wave of HPAI H5N1 spreading to newly affected countries, OIE confirmed the reemergence of H5N1 HPAI in Nigeria in January 2015
Summary
The disease has spread to nearly 400 enterprises and farms in 26 of the 37 states in the country and probably to bordering countries, such as Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin Republic (FAO 2015, 2016). This event is Veterinary Medicine and Science (2017), 3, pp. The H5 of the current virus strain in Nigeria was identified as belonging to Clade 2.3.2.1c, which has been reported from several Asian countries in recent years This clade has been associated in early 2015 with H5N1 cases in wild birds and poultry reported from Bulgaria and wild birds in Romania (Monne et al 2015). The source of incursion of the H5N1 virus into Nigeria is difficult to determine and may have been related to the informal poultry trade in Nigeria or migratory bird movements (FAO 2015)
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