Agricultural Research Management Information System

Home
Research Summary
Search
About Us
- ARMIS
- Brochure
Contact Us
Report
User Request
Data Input
Help
- Operation Manual
  - PDF
  - Video
- Program Area & Commodity
We have reached 37600 number of research entries at this moment.

- Logout

Research Detail

Home
Research
Detail

Poultry Slaughtering Practices in Rural Communities of Bangladesh and Risk of Avian Influenza Transmission: a Qualitative Study

Nadia Ali Rimi
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Rebeca Sultana
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Kazi Ishtiak-Ahmed
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Salah Uddin Khan
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

M. A. Yushuf Sharker
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Rashid Uz Zaman
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Eduardo Azziz-Baumgartner
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA

Emily S. Gurley
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Nazmun Nahar
Center for Communicable Diseases (CCD), icddr,b, 68 Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Sharani, Mohakhali, GPO Box 128, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Stephen P. Luby
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA

Abstract/ Executive Summary:

Slaughtering sick poultry is a risk factor for human infection with highly pathogenic avian influenza and is a common practice in Bangladesh. This paper describes human exposures to poultry during the slaughtering process and the customs and rituals influencing these practices in two Bangladeshi rural communities. In 2009, we conducted 30 observations to observe slaughtering practices and 110 in-depth and short interviews and 36 group discussions to explore reasons behind those practices. The villagers reported slaughtering 103 poultry, including 20 sick poultry during 2 months. During different stages of slaughtering, humans, the environment, healthy poultry, and other animals were exposed to poultry blood and body parts. Women performed most of the slaughtering tasks, including evisceration. Defeathering required the most time and involved several persons. During festivals, ceremonies, and rituals, many people gathered and participated in the slaughtering of poultry. Exposure to poultry slaughtering created numerous opportunities for potential avian influenza transmission. Strategies that can be further tested to determine if they reduce the risk of transmission include skinning the carcasses of sick poultry, using hot water for defeathering and cleaning, using a bucket to contain slaughtering blood and carcass, burying the offal and encouraging handwashing.

Keywords: Avian influenza, Bangladesh, Poultry slaughtering, Qualitative research, Focused ethnography

Location: Two rural villages in Rajshahi and Chittagong, districts

Start Date: 00-06-2009

End Date: 00-08-2009

Program Area: Animal Health and Management

Commodity: Diseases, Poultry

Objectives:

There is a need for an in-depth understanding of poultry slaughtering practices in order to inform the development of practical and culturally acceptable interventions to reduce the risk of avian influenza transmission to humans. We describe human exposure to poultry during the slaughtering and the influence of customs and rituals on these practices in two rural Bangladeshi communities to identify specific practices that might be modified to avoid human exposure to avian influenza.

Methodology:

Study Period and Settings A team of three anthropologists and two sociologists from icddr,b collected data from June to August, 2009. The team collected data from two rural villages in Rajshahi and Chittagong, districts from northwest and southeast Bangladesh. Being qualitative by nature, this study is designed with comparatively smaller sample size purposively selected to obtain an in-depth understanding of the issue from the perspective of the study population and did not aim to achieve statistical representativeness. Villages were chosen because of their small size, accessibility, and being typical in the region in terms of demographic and geographic characteristics, i.e., agriculture as the main occupation, inhabitant with Muslim majority and located in floodplains.

Data Collection To obtain in-depth understanding, we used a focused ethnographic approach (Pelto and Pelto 1997) which has been widely used in public health research to holistically study specific issues among a limited number of people of a single culture within a specific time period (Gove and Pelto 1994; Padmawatia and Nichter 2008). The team lived in two villages and observed 30 events of poultry slaughtering in their natural setting. They conducted 110 in-depth and short interviews and 36 informal group discussions in Bengali with community members, mainly women, to explore reasons for slaughtering poultry and villagers’ explanation behind different tasks during the process. The team took field notes to record the observations. The discussions were recorded using audio recorders and field notes. Our team recorded poultry as sick if villagers judged poultry to be sick. Villagers considered poultry sick when these stopped eating, defecated lime-like feces, or appeared lethargic or agitated.

Data Analysis The team completed the field notes every day after data collection and transcribed the recorded data verbatim in Bengali. They identified emerging themes from the findings relevant to the study objectives and summarized the data. The translation was not conducted until the data were presented in the manuscript because the first author is a native Bengali speaker.

Ethics The team obtained informed consent before conducting interviews, group discussions, and visual documentation. The Ethical Review Committee of the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh reviewed and approved the study protocol.

Source of Information: EcoHealth 11, 83–93, 2014

Article Link (Online Journal): DOI: 10.1007/s10393-013-0885-8

Funding Source:

Budget:

Total Budget (Tk.) :

Achievement/Findings:

Although international recommendations discourage home slaughtering of sick poultry (WHO 2007), villagers in rural Bangladesh are unlikely to stop this practice as it is central to household livelihood. Communication campaigns that included general preventive messages on raising poultry more safely in different countries resulted in minimal or no positive change in behavior. Specific messages on reducing risk during slaughtering or environmental cleaning can be incorporated in interventions and evaluated for effectiveness. This study provides information about the context of such practice which can be used to develop potential safe home slaughtering recommendations. Developing recommendations that poultry raisers would be willing and able to implement and would reduce risk is an important research priority. Generic recommendations that could be explored and piloted in these contexts include using a bucket to contain blood, carcass, offal, skin, feathers, and waste water and burying the bucket content to reduce potential environmental contamination. As personal protection measure, handwashing should be promoted. For the slaughtering of sick poultry, a more restrictive set of recommendations could be explored and piloted along with generic recommendations. Hot water could be used to decontaminate the bucket at the end of the process. Since avian influenza virus is susceptible to temperature (WHO 2007), hot water may decontaminate the bucket and slaughtering tools more effectively and using hot water for defeathering sick poultry may help to reduce the virus from the surface of the carcass and reduce flying of feather, which can harbor the virus. Skinning sick poultry along with feathers instead of defeathering may also reduce the exposure from defeathering process. Further research should develop and evaluate interventions during this high risk process in at risk communities.

Knowledge Management: Journal