ABSTRACT
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. Among the common diseases listed in each community, ND received the highest proportional piling scores of 146/249 (69.9%) in Chinade, 35/105 (32.4%) in Jalam, 183/261(70.1%) in Udubo, 149/244 (61.1%) in Kafin Madaki, 80/183 (43.7%) in Gongoro, 175/270 (64.8%) in Dass, 126/243 (50.8%) in Kutaru and 173/288 (60.1%) in Toro. ND also received the highest pair wise ranking scores of all the listed diseases of 3/4 in Dass, 4/5 in Chinade, Gongoro and Toro respectively; 5/6 in Jalam and Udubo and 6/7 in Kafin Madaki. ND which locally was known as Farin Kashi or Mai kere occurs between November and February with symptoms of snick/rales, greenish/ whitish diarrhoea and mortality in the neighbourhood. The results identified ND and predation as the major constraints to village chickens production with ND being ranked as the most important disease affecting village chickens in Bauchi State. The study recommends the prioritization of ND by Bauchi State Government and other Non-Governmental Organization for the purpose of disease control.
Key words: Newcastle disease, Nigeria, village chickens, focus group discussion, proportional piling exercise, pair wise ranking.
Nigeria has about half of its population living in poverty (NBS, 2012). As at 2016, a total of 4.6 million people
in the north-eastern Nigeria are faced with acute food insecurity, about 55,000 were faced with the threat of famine with over 1.8 million living as internally displaced people due to, violent conflict in connection with Boko Haram insurgency (RCPA, 2016). To reduce the level of poverty and hunger and to empower women as contained in the sustainable development goals of the United Nation, it require an increase in the income of people beyond $1.25 and doubling of agricultural productivity (SDG, 2015). Village chicken also known as indigenous domestic fowl constitute the majority of rural poultry (FAOSTAT, 2012) and have been reported to play a role in the improvement of income, nutritional status and women empowerment (Dolberg, 2003; Magetho et al., 2012). These have also reportedly aided resuscitation of victims of conflicts in Uganda (Sonaiya, 2009); are owned by resource poor people and have short cycle of production with low production cost, due to minimal input required in terms of housing, nutrition and labour (Sonaiya, 2009).
The meat and eggs arising from these chickens appears to be in great demand due to their flavour and toughness (Adene and Oguntade, 2006). Surplus chickens could be sold to bring income or consumed to enhance the nutrition of its owners (Sonaiya, 2009). Disease, predators, poor nutrition and environmental stress are constraints reported to hinder the production of these chickens (Bell, 2009). Newcastle disease (ND) has been considered as a principle factor limiting village chicken production (Spradbrow, 1993-94). Wherever ND was controlled, a boost in village chicken production has been recorded due reduced chicken mortality and increase in egg production that results in the hatching of more chickens (Alders et al., 2009; Sonaiya, 2009). ND virus belongs to the family Paramyxoviridae, sub family Paramyxovinae and genus avulavirus (Lamb and Knipe, 2007). The virus has a worldwide distribution and infects over 200 species of birds through inhalation or ingestion of the virus (OIE, 2012).
It has become mandatory to report Newcastle disease because of the notifiable disease that could result in trade restriction among nations (OIE, 2012). Information about ND is also required because this disease is associated with high mortality in chickens (Abdu et al., 1992). The observation that disease were under reported in all the states of Nigeria necessitates the need for an alternative means for obtaining baseline information on ND, that will be useful in identifying problems associated with rearing of village or rural poultry and planning control strategy geared towards eradication of ND in village chickens.The use of Participatory epidemiological (PE) tools-which have been considered as cost effective, timely and complimentary to monthly disease report (Mariner et al., 2011), could provide such information about the importance of ND in village chickens. The objective of this study was to determine the importance of ND in Bauchi State, Nigeria using some participatory epidemiologic tools.
Study area
This study was carried out in Bauchi State, Nigeria which occupies a land mass of 48,382 sq km that is located within latitudes 7o 52’N and 8o 56’N and longitudes 7o 25’E and 9o 37’E. The state lies on the Bauchi plateau with dry and wet season and has rivers Hadejia in its northern part and Gongola in the south, shares boundary with Kaduna, Benue, Yobe, Gombe, Plateau, Taraba, Kano and Jigawa States (INEC, 2008). The state has twenty Local Government Areas (LGAs), a human population of 5,515,300 (NPC, 2011), that belong to many ethnic groups whose occupation is mainly farming and a poultry population of about 5,832,750 (Adene and Oguntade, 2006).
Sample area
From the 20 LGAs of the state, eight LGAs were randomly selected out of which Chinade, Dass, Gongoro, Jalam, Kafin Madaki, Kutaru, Toro and Udubo communities were selected with one community being selected from each of the eight LGAs.
Participatory epidemiology
The materials used include: white chalk board, marker, eraser, felt pen, flip chart and beans. To conduct this study, Community animal health workers (CAHW) residing in the study communities were used as key informants. All the key informants were identified and contacted with the aid of the Director Veterinary Services, Bauchi State. The duty of the key informant was to arrange a meeting with community leaders, livestock farmers and traders. Discussion with this group of people is referred to as focus group discussion (FGD). All persons invited by the key informant that were in attendance were engaged in FGD, to generate information on the importance of ND in village chicken. To rank by importance among common diseases in each community, a proportional piling exercise and a pair wise ranking exercise was used (Mariner et al., 2011). To undertake proportional piling exercise, 15 to 30 beans were shared among participants to pile for important disease among common diseases of village chicken, prevailing in each community. A pair wise ranking on common diseases of village chickens was done among participants of FGD, to compare in pairs which disease receives the highest score of importance. Participants of FGD were also asked about the seasons their chickens commonly suffer from ND.
Data analysis
Results were summarized into tables according to themes. Simple percentage was used to weigh the scores given to common diseases by the members of FGDs.
Participants who were engaged in FGD in all the communities commonly mentioned disease, predation and poor housing as major challenges encountered in village chicken production (Table 1). ND received the highest scores from proportional piling exercise among common diseases of village chickens listed in each of the studied communities (Tables 2, 3 and 4). Similarly, the highest score by pair wise ranking among important disease of village chickens was also giving to ND by, members of the FGD (Tables 2, 3 and 4). The respective proportional piling scores for ND in Chinade, Jalam and Udubo were 146/249 (69.9%), 35/105 (32.4%), and 183/261(70.1%) (Table 2); in Kafin Madaki and Gongoro were 149/244 (61.1%) and 80/183 (43.7%), respectively; while, in Dass, Kutaru and Toro were 175/270 (64.8%), 126/243 (50.8%) and 173/288 (60.1%), respectively.
The respective scores of pair wise ranking for ND in Chinade, Jalam and Udubo were four out of five (4/5), five out of six (5/6) and five out of six (5/6) (Table 2). The scores in Kafin Madaki and Gongoro were six out of seven (6/7), and four out of five (4/5), respectively (Table 3). The score in Dass, Kutaru and Toro were three out of four (3/4), five out of six (5/6) and four out of five (4/5), respectively (Table 4). All the FGDs had associated the period between November to February with major outbreaks of ND. A second lower period of ND occurrence was said to occur in May which coincides with the hot and early rainy season. The occurrence of ND was observed all year round in Kutaru and Toro (Table 5). The local Hausa names used to describe ND in the studied communities were Mai Kere, Farin Kashi. Kore and Jonga. The commonly mentioned symptoms for identification of ND by the communities were: whitish (Farin Kashi) or greenish (Kore) diarrhoea, death of chickens in the neighbourhood (Mutuwan kajin unguwa), huddling (Takura) and groaning/choking/snick or rales (Ket/Kwat/Kirit) (Table 6).
That members of the focus group discussion mentioned ND, predators and housing as a common problem of village chicken production seem to suggest the need for improvement in these areas. The highest ranking received by ND among common diseases of village chickens by both, proportional piling exercise and pair wise ranking exercise in all the eight communities, shows how important ND is among the diseases of village chickens in these communities. The ranking of ND as the most important disease of village chickens in the studied communities was similar to the works of Ndahi and Kwage (2011) and Ndahi et al. (2012) in the neighbouring Plateau State; Bala et al. (2012) in Nasarawa State; Anzaku et al. (2014) in Abuja, Jibril et al. (2015) in Zamfara State and Waziri et al. (2016) in Bauchi town and Katagum LGA of Bauchi State.
Given that, the proportional piling scores of the next ranked disease in each of the studied community did not reach half of the scores awarded to ND; this further indicate how important ND was to village chickens farmers. The knowledge that ND was the most important disease of village chickens in these communities appears to show the extent of the problem in these communities. The control of ND in village chickens could bring great relief to owners of these chickens through, reduction of mortality associated with ND. Such knowledge may be useful to the Department of Veterinary Services in the State and could enable it to prioritize ND for the purpose of planning disease control in village chickens in Bauchi State. The control of ND amongst village chickens through a strategic control programme will boost interest in village chicken or rural poultry production practice and may pave way for sustainability of other rural poultry disease control programmes.
In Nigeria, ND is generally well-recognized by farmers in both local and exotic breed (lawal et al., 2015). The existence of local names for ND in each community further highlights how important the disease is in all the studied communities. The local names for ND were Mai Kere Jonga, Farin Kashi (whitish diarrhoea), or Haukan Kaji (madness of chickens). Farin Kashi, and Haukan Kaji are local names of ND in the Hausa land; Mai Kere refers to the stick used by hunters to kill wild animals quickly; and has similarity to Fakat which is another local Hausa by members of the FGD were similar to classical clinical signs of ND (Chakrabarti, 2007; Cynthia and Scott, 2010; Young et al., 2012). The implication of these finding is that, local people have good knowledge of the clinical signs of ND. Obtaining information from local people about diseases of livestock is foundational to participatory epidemiology. Such knowledge could be harnessed to, enhance our understanding of the epidemiology of ND in village chickens dto evaluate efficacy of a control programme due to presence or absence of defined symptoms. This will ultimately strengthen our disease surveillance much similar to the observation by Mariner et al. (2011). That, ND was reported by the communities to mostly occur between the months of November to February, appears to suggest seasonality in the occurrence of outbreak of ND.
Knowledge of seasonal occurrence of ND could be used in planning vaccination programme that will lead to the control of the disease. Planned intervention should be undertaken before October which is, the period when ND outbreaks is likely to start. Although, October to March were the months most communities encounter ND, the disease was observed to occur throughout the year in Kutaru and Toro, perhaps reflecting a changing pattern of the disease that could possibly be due to active trading of chickens, as a result of gradual urbanization of such communities. Changing patterns of disease are of epidemiological importance which has the potential to affect the design and timing of disease control programmes (Févre et al., 2006).
ND and predation were mentioned in all communities as constraints to village chicken production. ND received the highest of importance by both the proportional piling and pair wise ranking in all the studied communities because of its association with high mortality. ND mostly occurs between November, February and May. The local names mostly used to describe ND were Mai kere, Farin Kashi and Kore and the most common symptoms mentioned by FGD in all the communities were: diarrhoea, death of chickens in the neighbourhood and snick or rales. The study recommends a collaborative effort by farmers, government and non-governmental organization to prioritize and institute measures for the control of ND in Bauchi State, Nigeria.
The authors have not declared any conflict of interests.
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