The recent bird flu alert at the Central Poultry Development Organisation (CDPO) at Hesarghatta has yet again brought the focus back on the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI-H5N1) which has the potential to cause significant economic loss and high mortality.
Small farmers and the rural poor, who depend on these livestock, are the ones who bear the brunt. Death rates in humans infected with this virus are much higher than the regular influenza infection. The virus can be transmitted to humans through direct or indirect contact with live or dead poultry — their droppings, feathers, intestines and blood. Once humans are infected, the virus becomes airborne, which makes control difficult.
The failure to control the disease in a sustained manner is mainly because of inadequate veterinary services, high poultry density, poor biosecurity and poor regulation of the market chain. India has much to learn from countries in the Asia-Pacific region such as Japan, Korea, Malaysia, China, Thailand and Vietnam, where the disease had been introduced and also eliminated through improved biosecurity in poultry production and preventative vaccination. Community-based approaches to communication and public awareness, keeping in mind local cultural practices, has helped the process.
With growing urban populations and rising incomes, the demand for animal protein has been rising exponentially. For those who deal with poultry, there is a need to understand and practice good hygiene, keeping new poultry separated from existing flocks, protecting water and food supplies from wild birds, identification and notification of sick and dead birds, disposal of sick and dead birds, efficient linkages with trained veterinarians, and the need to avoid bypassing of regulations.
The government should also not allow the brunt of the economic burden arising from mass culling and poor compensation for destroyed poultry to fall on the individual farmer. This will ensure that early signs of the outbreak are picked up and transmitted even by individual farmers who are otherwise hard to monitor and regulate. Veterinary services need to be restructured to cover most geographic areas and control measures in a decentralised manner.
If an individual is found to have symptoms of avian influenza such as fever, cough, sore throat, muscle ache, difficult breathing, they should keep interaction with other humans to a minimum and be referred to a doctor.
Control of avian flu, thus, calls for putting into place all interventions that are important in the control of any disease of public health concern an informed community, a network of research, diagnostic and intervention facilities and a government with a political will.
The write is a public health doctor and is the co-convener for the Jana Arogya Andolana Karnataka