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Biosecurity breaches major contributing factor in disease outbreaks
In intensive livestock farming, a good biosecurity protocol is essential as potentially harmful diseases can inflict huge damage. And it is not difficult to implement these protocols, the challenge is to live up to them as the human factor poses the greatest risk. Poultry World looks into some tools that can help to raise awareness.
BY MELANIE EPP O
n Sunday 30 January 2021, Japanese authorities in both the Chiba and Miyazake prefectures con- firmed a case of high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). It was the seventh outbreak since Decem-
ber 2020 for the Chiba-based farm and led to the culling of some 1.5 million birds. According to a news report in Japan Times, most poultry farms hit by avian flu since last year could attribute the outbreaks to human error, including insufficient protection from wild birds and rodents. Inspectors said that in 63% of barns the people working there did not take suffi- cient disinfection measures. Sadly, this human negligence is not an isolated incident. Around the world, disease outbreaks can most often be attributed to biosecurity breaches and human error.
Application of biosecurity measures Biosecurity measures are designed to protect livestock from infection but must be applied consistently in order to be successful. In a 2011 study, researchers Manon Racicot, a veterinary epidemiologist at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and professor at the University of Montreal, and Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt, University of Montreal professor, used video cameras to investigate biosecurity compliance on eight poultry farms in Quebec, Canada. The results re- vealed that there was much work to be done. Vaillancourt, who advises farmers and farm managers in Canada and oth- er nations, including Mexico and France, said that not much has changed. The 2011 study recorded 44 different
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mistakes, many made repeatedly, over 883 visits by 102 in- dividuals. Twenty-seven of the 44 possible errors (61.4%) were related to area delimitation, six to boots (13.6%), five to hand washing (11.4%), three to coveralls (6.8%), and three to logbooks (6.8%). The nature and frequency of the errors made suggested a lack of understanding of biosecuri- ty measures. Education was seen as a means to bring about improvement. In a second project, Racicot and Vaillancourt used RFID tags, like those used in hospitals by healthcare workers, to monitor compliance on a layer farm with eight employees in Canada. The tags were placed in the shoes of the workers, as well as in farm boots. When the worker’s personal shoes entered a clean zone in the barn the system generated a beeping sound. The same system was used to alert employees when they did not use hand sanitizer, Vaillancourt explained in a recent inter- view. Boots are a major source of contamination, he said. In a study where they used modified bacteria that glowed in the dark, unclean boots distributed bacteria 10 metres from the point of entry. Contrary to popular thinking, the boots did not get any cleaner as the employee walked from one side of the barn to the other, said Vaillancourt. Once spread on-farm, it doesn’t take much for a pathogen to spread further on from one farm to another. When work- ing with producers in France, Vaillancourt pointed out the issue of carcass collection by the rendering industry where, in one case, a collector visited as many as 44 farms in a sin- gle day. The spread can happen quickly, said Vaillancourt, and when response time is slow – in France, it took eight days before the industry responded – the contamination can become widespread as well. Biosecurity is designed to deal with endemic conditions, in- cluding HPAI, said Vaillancourt. “But once you have a case of a serious condition like that, normal biosecurity is not going to be sufficient,” he said. “You need to be able to react quick- ly, you need to be able to communicate with the right peo- ple immediately, and you need to have the industry pre- pared to slaughter birds even before the government decides that it is necessary.”
PHOTO: KOOS GROENEWOLD
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