Abstract
Livestock rearing is an important income source for small-scale farmers in Myanmar, but Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Newcastle disease (ND) are major constraints to livestock production. A study was conducted to identify perceptions of farmers about FMD and ND disease risks and perceptions about vaccination practices by using the modified health belief model. The majority of livestock farmers (>70%) reported that they were aware of the risk and impact of FMD and ND and were willing to vaccinate their livestock (>60%). Focusing on three main livestock farmer groups, about 17.0% of cattle, 15.4% of village chicken, but only 2.3% of small ruminant owners, indicated that the non-availability of vaccinations in the villages was the major constraint to vaccinations (p<0.001), while in contrast twice as many small ruminant farmers compared to cattle and village chicken farmers indicated they had no knowledge about vaccinations and no funds to conduct vaccinations. Limited accessibility to vaccines and vaccinators was related to size of villages (p = 0.001 for cattle; p = 0.027 for small ruminants; p = 0.005 for village chicken). Willingness to vaccinate small ruminants against FMD was associated with the perceived impact of the disease on sales and accessibility of information about vaccination. Accessibility to information about ND vaccination influenced the willingness of village chicken farmers to conduct vaccinations. In addition, beliefs in the effectiveness of vaccinations played a major role in the willingness to carry out vaccinations on both, cattle (β = 0.3, p = 0.018) and village chicken farms (β = 0.5, p<0.001). Our study highlights that policies that increase the accessibility of vaccines and the dissemination of information about disease prevention and vaccination practices in villages of all sizes, have the potential to increase FMD and ND vaccination rates and thereby reduce outbreak occurrence in Myanmar. On the other hand, indirect factors, such as village size strongly influenced the availability of vaccinations.
Highlights
Multispecies, small-scale livestock rearing is the main form of livestock production in low and middle-income countries [1,2,3,4,5,6]
We explored what demographic factors of farmers influenced the ability of farmers to recognize clinical signs for Foot and mouth disease (FMD) and Newcastle disease (ND) (Table 1)
Regarding the experience of livestock rearing, experience did not seem to have significant varied in small ruminant production while majority of farmers raising cattle and village chicken had more experience (>5 years). These two facts may explain that the small ruminant market seem to be recently developed which may further lead to raise small ruminant for business-oriented purpose while cattle and village chicken farmers followed traditional farming practice (Table 1)
Summary
Multispecies, small-scale livestock rearing is the main form of livestock production in low and middle-income countries [1,2,3,4,5,6]. Due to the awareness, limited resources and vaccination practice especially in rural areas where the majority of traditional backyard farming is implemented, FMD has been still threatening the livestock production especially in developing countries [28,29] Another high impact disease, which infect poultry is Newcastle disease (ND), with approximately 100% mortality, which is associated with high mortality rates in village chickens and often results in the complete loss of village chicken flocks [21,30,31,32]. Both of the diseases (i.e. FMD and ND) are recognized globally as high impact notorious endemic diseases in Asia, Africa and Middle East, causing negative impact in the livestock production with its severe clinical signs, reduced performance and slow growth or deaths [11,18,33,34,35,36,37]
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