They could work with small poultry farmers to encourage them to adopt efficient disease management strategies. These data could be most useful to regional animal health authorities, which have detailed knowledge of local farming systems and personal connections in the communities where they work. However, as animals were often sold alive in markets or to itinerant sellers, this practice increases the risk of spreading diseases further along the trade circuits. Even if they do not make as much money selling immature individuals, this strategy may allow them to mitigate economical loss: they can sell animals that may die soon, saving on feeding costs and potentially avoiding further contamination. For instance, they were 214% more likely to send their animals to market if an outbreak with sudden deaths occurred that month. When an outbreak occurred, farmers with fewer than 17 chickens tended to sell their animals earlier. However, disease outbreaks did not affect vaccination or disinfection practices. Overall, poultry farms with more than 17 chickens were more likely to vaccinate their animals and use disinfection practices than smaller farms. In particular, they tracked when outbreaks occurred on each farm, and how farmers reacted. monitored 53 poultry farms, with fewer than 1000 chickens per farm, monthly for over a year and a half. Yet, it was unclear how the emergence of an outbreak could change the behavior of farmers. There, a large number of farmers practice poultry farming on a small scale, with limited investments in disease prevention such as vaccination or disinfection. The Mekong river delta, in southern Vietnam, is one of the regions with the highest circulation of avian influenza. In addition, these viruses can sometimes ‘jump’ into humans, potentially allowing new diseases – including pandemics – to emerge.

The past few decades have seen the circulation of avian influenza viruses increase in domesticated poultry, regularly creating outbreaks associated with heavy economic loss. As depopulated birds are sent to markets or trading networks, this reactive behavior has the potential to enhance onward transmission. Small-scale farmers – the overwhelming majority of poultry producers in low-income countries – tend to rely on rapid sale of birds to mitigate losses from diseases. Vaccination and disinfection were strongly and positively correlated with the number of birds. We found that in small broiler flocks (≤16 birds/flock) the estimated probability of harvest was 56% higher when an outbreak occurred, and 214% higher if an outbreak with sudden deaths occurred in the same month. We used a longitudinal survey of 53 small-scale chicken farms in southern Vietnam to investigate the impact of outbreaks with disease-induced mortality on harvest rate, vaccination, and disinfection behaviors. Farmer responses to these outbreaks can slow down or accelerate virus transmission. Avian influenza outbreaks have been occurring on smallholder poultry farms in Asia for two decades.

7 days to die farming 17.4