Group trains students on vaccinating village chickens against Newcastle diseases

From Jude Owuamanam, Jos

Newcastle disease or avian pneumoencephalitis, Exotic Newcastle Disease, is described as a severe, systemic and fatal viral disease of poultry due to virulent strains of avian paramyxovirus type 1, which has no treatment.

It is said to be an infection that affects domestic poultry and other bird species with virulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV), which is capable of producing a devastating effect in domestic fowl, with vast social and economic consequences. It is a worldwide problem that presents primarily as an acute respiratory disease. However, depression, nervous signs or diarrhea may be the predominant clinical form.

 

Scientists say that severity of ND depends on the virulence and genetic type of the infecting virus and host susceptibility. There is no treatment for Newcastle disease, and, in many countries, infected and susceptible birds in the vicinity of an outbreak are culled to contain transmission of the disease.

Prevention is accomplished through vaccination and strict biosecurity. Real-time RT-PCR is the test of choice to detect viral RNA typical of virulent NDV and confirm infection in birds with clinical signs of disease. Occurrence of the disease in poultry is notifiable and may result in trade restrictions

Clinical signs of this disease, in unvaccinated birds, according to Jude Obi Okpara, the provost of the College Animal Health and Production Technology, located at the premises of the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, near Jos, include sudden death, lethargy and respiratory distress. The disease is diagnosed through laboratory confirmation and the only option is vaccination to prevent clinical signs but not infection. Vaccination, according to Okpara, is very important as the infection is very difficult  to control, especially in NIgeria.

So, for him, the joy of  Agriprojects Concept International Limited, in partnership with Propcom+, undertaking to train graduating students of the institution in how to assist farmers deal with the problem knew no bounds. No fewer than  100  graduating students of the college are being trained as village-based vaccinators for controlling this disease in chickens in rural communities.

According to Okpara, the training is very important for students at this period of their career because they will become change agents in solving the problem posed by the disease, especially among farmers in rural communities.

He said: “We consider this training as very important when we realise that the breeding of chickens at home constitutes the greater percentage of protein intake for most households who rear chickens in small spaces.

“When you go to most homes in our communities, especially as some festivities approach, you find women rearing chickens in almost every imaginable space in their houses to provide protein for their families. This may be or may not be for commercial purposes, but we find out that because some of them are not trained on how to vaccinate their birds, a greater percentage die before maturity from Newcastle disease. The only way is to vaccinate these birds before they come down with the disease as the fatality rate is very high.”

Okpara described Newcastle disease as a limiting factor in poultry production in the country and has been known to constitute more than 70 percent of fatalities in birds.

He said that the trainees were supposed to serve as interventions in various communities to assist poultry producers to vaccinate the birds against the disease

Okpara said: “This training is very important because the disease in question, I can say, is a limiting factor in poultry production in this country, and selecting Newcastle disease as a pilot programme is something that is very commendable because, almost in every vicinity in this country, you have women in particular you know rearing these birds and most often during this period, especially between October and November every year, you can’t believe it that more than 90 percent of those birds are gone due to lack of proper veterinary care.

“Training these children with the aim of targeting and reaching the grassroots is in line with the food security agenda of the present administration and the benefits cannot be overemphasized. These are graduates who are selected based on their track records of dedication uprightness and most especially their interest in the husbandry you know because you may have the wherewithal you can be armed with all the certificates but if you don’t have the interest to deliver we are going nowhere.”

He described Newcastle disease as an air-borne endemic poultry disease prevalent in this country that can affect thousands of birds within minutes if even one of them is infected and can have mortality rates of even up to 100 percent, meaning it can wipe out an entire poultry farm.

Newcastle disease is endemic, so it’s here with us and it’s a limiting factor to poultry production in this country.

According to him, the reason the mortality rate is high is because most people still rely on the traditional way of treating this disease, adding: “You know the traditional approach, which most often though effective cannot be compared to using the vaccines already developed for the control of the disease.”

He said that another aim of the training was not just understanding the epidemiology of the disease but also ensuring that the birds were vaccinated at the right time, stressing that, being a viral disease, the only way it could be controlled was through vaccination and the medication being produced at the National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI).

Head of the Department of Animal Health of the college, Dr. Habbiba Momoh, described the training as very important as it afforded the graduate students the opportunity of putting into practice and fully embracing what they had learnt in the classroom.

She said, with the harsh economic realities in the country, the graduates would not be looking for jobs as bird rearing is practised in most villages and homes.

“With this training, the students are not supposed to look for jobs, as they have the jobs already cut out for them. By going to their communities, they can assist local poultry farmers take care of their birds and with this they earn some income.”

Technical sales representative of Agriprojects Concepts International Ltd, Dr. Solomon Tugga Andy, and representative of Propcom+ said, as a solution provider in the agricultural sector and consultancy services providers, Agriprojects was providing services to rural farmers on how to vaccinate their birds, being one of the greatest challenges they face in the poultry business.

He said: “We chose to train them on Newcastle disease because it is a broader disease that constitutes one of the major challenges faced by farmers in our communities and has affected farmers in devastating ways.

“It has always been, you know, part of the objective of our organization  to build resilience among smallholder farmers. And one of the ways to achieve that is actually to find a model through which the unreached smallholder farmers, the poultry, livestock farmers and small remnant farmers can be reached.

“And the only way you can bridge that gap for them to have access to vaccine is by ensuring that you get foot soldiers, trained foot soldiers to build their capacity and then also not just building their technical capacity, but build a business and entrepreneurship management skills on them to be able to see the business that is in need.

“Because if you look at statistically, it has been proven that most of the protein that is consumed In our economy today, 80% of this is from the rural communities. So, the best way that can be done to improve food security and to improve nutrition is by ensuring that there are foot soldiers who are veterinary professionals and community and mind workers that can be able to create awareness on the availability of vaccine and also be able to provide these services to smallholder farmers across their various communities and local governments will at least ensure that the unreached farmers are reached with this information.

“Also with the services so what then happened at the end is that there is an increase in flock size, which will lead to increase in in in livelihood and income so you will see a small farmer can be able to to improve their livelihood can be able to send their children to school can be able to support the family, especially women because it has been proven that women are mostly the ones who are in charge of these small backyard businesses.

Two of the students, Miss Adamu and Lyarak Hwok, said that they picked interest in the training because of the experiences of the former graduates who had benefited from similar training and expressed the wish to apply their experiences to assist local poultry farmers overcome the problems posed by Newcastle disease.

Hwok said: “For me, the training is particularly important because I will take the experiences back home and assist my local community overcome this problem, especially as the dry season approaches  because we were taught Newcastle disease as an airborne disease is spread very quickly through the wind.”