M M H Mondal (Bangladesh) - The small poultry farming in Bangladesh is facing a major set back towards sustainability due to various diseases/ailments. On an average 30 - 40 % poultry birds die annually due to various diseases and predators.

Various biological, cultural, social and economic factors greatly influence healthy flock management in the villages. High chick mortality has always been found associated with poor feeding, housing and health control practices. A closer look at the small poultry farming showed that in spite of training and motivation farmer's attitude towards healthy poultry management was still hazy. Most of the farmers vaccinated their flocks without maintaining cool chain and indiscriminately. The principles of bio-safety are yet difficult to implement by small poultry growers because of various socio-economic barriers.

Tran Dinh Tu (Vietnam) -Poultry diseases are considered the largest threat to traditional poultry production in Vietnam. Newcastle disease is the main fatal disease of chicken occurring throughout the year, Fowl cholera and fowl pox are also common diseases in village chicken. The Vietnamese government has encouraged the farmers to actively participate in vaccination campaigns against Newcastle disease. Thanks to frequent vaccination campaigns, the incidence of Newcastle disease decreased sharply and chicken population increased rapidly in many villages.

Filomena dos Anjos (Mozambique) addressed to Prof. Tu (Vietnam) � I would like to have more details about your programs on vaccination campaign against Newcastle disease (ND) [the main problems in carrying it out, organization, etc].

Robyn Alders (Mozambique) by his experience of working with the ND control programme in Vietnam (Prof. Tu) gave a response to the above question. The I-2 ND vaccine (a live, thermostable, avirulent vaccine usually administered via eye drop) was introduced to NAVETCO (a parastatal company that produces veterinary pharmaceutical products in Ho Chi Minh City) with assistance from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). The I-2 ND vaccine is sold as a freeze-dried vaccine with the smallest vial containing 25 doses. In village chickens, the vaccine is administered via eye drop (every 4 months) or via cooked white rice (given twice, two weeks apart initially and then every 2 months). NAVETCO has an extensive distribution network within the south of Vietnam and so the vaccine is available for purchase in many centres.

These centres and the extension services in general function well for large to medium scale farmers. However, in a study conducted by Ms Brigitte Bagnol (a sociologist) it was found that small-scale farmers (and women in particular) were not benefiting from the same level of service and that the extension material was not appropriate for this target group.

This study was done as part of a project entitled "Improving capacity to control Newcastle disease and duck plague in village poultry" that was financed by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and implemented in collaboration with NAVETCO. In response to this situation a new range of extension material and methods were developed to ensure that poorer farmers (both men and women) have access to the technology and that they are able to use it with success. ACIAR has been assisting with the development of appropriate technology for the control of Newcastle disease since 1984. It is able to provide a range of material to those working developing countries free of charge.

The following items can be ordered or downloaded from the ACIAR website (www.aciar.gov.au):
* SADC Planning Workshop on Newcastle Disease Control in Village Chickens, ACIAR Proceedings No. 103.
* Controlling Newcastle Disease in Village Chickens: A Field Manual. ACIAR Monograph No. 82.
* Controlling Newcastle Disease in Village Chickens: A Training Manual. ACIAR Monograph No. 86.
A French version of the ND field manual is available for download from the INFPD website.
(www.fao.org/ag/aga/agap/lpa/fampo1.fampo.htm).

Much of this extension material is also available in Portuguese thanks to a project on ND control implemented in Mozambique by the National Veterinary Research Institute and ACIAR. This project will be described in more detail later in this e-conference.

Further information may be obtained from the ACIAR/UQ Village Poultry Website (www.vsap.uq.edu.au/ruralpoultry).

Asifo O. Ajuyah (Fiji) addressed to Murray Maclean (Vietnam) - You said in your paper that in Cambodia as in other countries in the region, village poultry raising is characterised by regular occurrence of Newcastle disease that kills a large percentage of chickens. This fact dominates the pattern of flock structure throughout the year. Frequent outbreaks of disease also have a large effect on profitability.

My question is, has the situation changed since your paper is pre 2000? However, based on figure 33 and table 43 the economical impact of disease on the village poultry in Cambodia is quite serious and strategies must be developed to ensure the long-term viability of the industry. Depletion of stock from disease might explain the low poultry number per head of population (1.2) and the trends observed in figure 30 viz. a viz. the theoretical flock structure. Finally, I must say that figures 31-33 are very informative and provide a good synopsis of a typical Cambodia village hen, which may not be atypical to hens in other developing countries.

Murray Maclean (Vietnam) - I have not been in Cambodia for 18 months, but I suspect that except for limited areas that have received assistance, the situation of regular such disease outbreaks (i.e. Newcastle Disease) continues. Activities to improve village chicken raising in Cambodia have been few and far between (although there have been some success), often because priorities have been in securing and improving cattle, buffalo, and pig production. A lot of work has been done on developing basic animal health services to farmers, through village animal health workers.

In such a system it is easy for chickens to be neglected because the incentive is not readily there for such private workers to organise chicken vaccinations, when the main income is coming from pig, cattle treatments, with some preventive thrown in. Improvement of chicken raising (as shown by the Bangladesh model) would, I suspect, require specific attention with a long-term, targeted commitment, which as far as I am aware has not yet occurred to date. Some of the conditions similar so such a project, I would think would have a good chance of success.

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Khieu Borin (Cambodia) - The intervention to the village poultry must look into the needs of existing practices of village poultry. As an example, in the villages of Cambodia where the Special Programme for Food Security (SPFS) was implemented, the main problem raised by local community was high mortality due to the outbreak of diseases such as Newcastle disease, fowl cholera, etc.

The first intervention therefore was focused on vaccination campaign through the trained farmers in each village. With this intervention SPFS gained farmers participation in the programme. There is no good or bad model. The successful model is one, which is supported by beneficiaries (farmers/producers). Therefore, I think the first foot print that you leave in the village must be appreciated by villagers. Through Telefood funding, SPFS provides assistant on vaccination against common diseases and housing for chickens, the survival rate has improved 15%. Presently, feed and feeding systems are also tackled.

Nitya Ghotge (India) - ANTHRA is an organisation working in India on issues on livestock development and health. A considerable part of our work is with poor rural women and many of the concerns raised such as high mortality and losses to Newcastle disease and predators have been major problems in the areas we work in. We have tried to tackle these problems mainly by using locally available low cost options, including ethnoveterinary medicine along with a successful vaccination programme against Newcastle disease and Fowl pox. Mortality rates have gone down significantly.

Yongolo M.G.S (Tanzania) - The Newcastle disease (ND) is possible to control by using thermostable as well as conventional ND vaccines, if it is well planned and synchronised. The results are so remarkable that it encourages poor farmers first to be interested and enthusiastic in keeping chickens as they get more surplus chickens for sale. That can lead in investing on poultry activities.

However I would like to ask if others in Bangladesh or elsewhere have experienced any post vaccination complications as we have in free ranged rural chickens. The main complication is occurrence of infectious coryza, pox, colibacillosis and sometimes ND itself.

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Peder Lund (Denmark) - During my time in Noakhali, Bangladesh (1987 - 89) we interviewed a number of women concerning their poultry. The conclusion was that mortality of chicks was around 80%. The major losses occurred during the chicks first two months. Fifty percent of the losses were due to predators and the other fifty due to diseases (Ranikhet Disease [=Newcastle disease] getting the main blame). It was also interesting to note that the offspring from hybrid birds were the first to succumb to predators. This was mainly due to their colour (poor camouflage).

As a consequence the project trained female vaccinators (illiterate and semi-literate women) and advised the villagers to protect the young chicks during the first two months. The method of protecting the chicks was the same as the one recommended by the Poultry Model. In the villages where vaccination was provided and the chicks protected, mortality fell to around 20%. An interesting aspect was that there was no substantial increase in the poultry population. However, the households had an increase in sales and consumption of birds and eggs.

Similar results have been seen on projects in Orissa, Chattissgarh and Tamil Nadu in India. One villager in Tamil Nadu reported "before we started vaccinating our birds and protecting our chicks, our village used to import hens for our festivals, now we have become self-sufficient".

Tran Dinh Tu (Vietnam) - Newcastle disease is the main fatal disease of chicken occurring throughout the year in village chicken in Vietnam. Frequent vaccination campaigns using thermostable and conventional vaccines have helped in sharply decreasing the incidence of Newcastle disease and chicken population increased rapidly in many villages.

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Chrysost�me Christohe (Benin) I read the Introduction paper on Mozambique, which is included. Coming to the paper I want to ask some questions to Filomena dos Anjos and Robyn Alders

1- at the beginning of the program of the control of Newcastle disease which disease occur in your case? Because in my country the implementation of ND control program has really resulted in increasing of chicken numbers but CRD fowl pox appeared.

2- apart of these three programmes, do you have a program in the field of nutrition.

Robyn Alders (Mozambique) -

1. Initially we did some baseline studies and ND was always identified as the major constraint. We started with ND control, as it is easier for farmers to see the benefit of an intervention if they are introduced one by one. Once ND is controlled, other diseases and other constraints do become more apparent and sometimes will become major problems.

Fowl pox is one disease that can become more prevalent. Our recommendation is that the community vaccinators and the extension workers (i.e. people on the front line) need to be alert and watching out for new problems. As the new problems appear, the ones that are priorities to the farmers need to be included into extension activities. With fowl pox, in the first instance, we suggest that farmers use improved husbandry techniques to try and control the disease. Where ever possible vaccination can be introduced. An introduction to the control of other diseases is given in the last appendix in our ND training manual. Improving village chicken production really is a good example of continuous improvement.

2. The ND vaccine is not free; farmers are generally expected to pay for the vaccine and its administration (USD 0.02 per bird). Some projects have given the vaccine free of charge in the past but the control activities always came to a halt when the project ended.

Chrysost�me Christohe (Benin) - By your comment I notice that the price of the vaccine and its administration in your country (USD 0.02 per bird) is cheaper than in Benin (0.05-0.07).

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J�rgen Lohr (Germany) -From my experience in Uganda and Malawi on behalf of GTZ I would like to confirm and also extend the experiences by Anjos and Alders in Mozambique and by Kitalyi in Kenya. Newcastle Disease (ND) is certainly the most important chicken disease in African and also Asian countries, followed by avian pox.

In a GTZ project in the Mzuzu district of Malawi in 1992 the following vaccination schedule was recommended for COMMERCIAL egg-layers (Lohr, 1993):

Marek's Dis. Day 1
1st ND (V4) Day 1 (eye-drop) OR day 4-5 (drinking water)
1st Gumboro Day 14
2nd ND - V 4 3-4 weeks, drinking water
1st Fowl Pox 4 weeks
2nd Gumboro 5 weeks
3rd ND -V4 10 weeks, drinking water
2nd Fowl Pox 14-16 weeks (optional)
4th ND - V4 18-19 weeks (eye-drop or drinking water)
Repeat ND-V4 every 6 months, drinking water [this may have to be done more often]

In principle, such a vaccination recommendation should also be applied to family chickens, but may be more difficult to implement. It is generally accepted that the I2 vaccine strain from Dr. Spradbrow, Brisbane University, is equivalent to the commercialised and more expensive V4 vaccine. Experience from Ethiopia (Nasser et al., 2000) has confirmed the efficacy of the I2 vaccine via the drinking water, by eye-drop, or via parboiled feed. However, feed application has a number of organisational disadvantages.

There are still many other factors limiting production, particularly in scavenging-type poultry production, such as lack of regular feed supply, inadequate feed quality, inadequate water supply and quality, endo- and ectoparasites, predation and theft by humans. The latter can be a serious limitation.

Anjos and Alders also mentioned peri-urban production of broilers. Similar projects existed in Malawi in the early 90ies and may have been extended in later years. It was found (Lohr, 1993) that BROILER PRODUCTION was impossible without at least two ND and 2 IBDV (Gumboro) vaccinations. Our recommendation was:

1st ND-V4 Day 1 (eye-drop) OR day 5-10 (drinking water)
1st IBDV Day 14
2nd ND-V4 3 weeks, drinking water
2nd IBDV 5 weeks, drinking water
3rd ND (?) in case of extended growth period

Fowl pox, IB, ILT did not appear to play a major, if any, role in broilers, but CRD did in some cases.

Surely, conditions will vary from country to country within the African continent, requiring some adjustment to the vaccination schedule. Efficient and affordable vaccines are available but the organisation of regular vaccination campaigns, supply and application of the vaccines and a general system of disease surveillance appears to be a major task on which the success or failure of family chicken production may depend in many African countries.

May I also point to the benefits of small-scale pigeon raising to improve the nutrition of villagers. Pigeons can find their own feed within a much larger area than chickens and they are usually not vaccinated. However, certain housing standards are required to prevent endo- and ectoparasitism.

Literature
1. Lohr, J.E. (1993). Survey on management problems and Diseases affecting Poultry Production in the Mzuzu District of Malawi. Xth WVPA Meeting, 16-19 Aug. 1993, Sydney, Australia.
2. Nasser, M. et al. (2000). Oral Newcastle Disease Vaccination in Ethiopia. Avian Pathology 29, 27-34.

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Concerns have been raised about health hazards from poultry residues.

First comment on residue and health from Horst W. Doelle (Austria) - I was surprised to read that no care has been taken in this model for the residues from the poultry. Poultry manure as well as chicken residues are excellent resources for anaerobic digestion, which would give the poor free cooking gas. Bangladesh is one of the developing countries, which has adopted readily anaerobic digestion and I am surprised to see that the model has not been thought through properly. If you organise and construct such communities, one should not only look at the food and economics or money, but also on the health of the people, because poultry manure contains one of the most vicious pathogens and thus health hazard.

What is being done with the poultry residues?

Hans Askov Jensen (Denmark) - The poultry residues are mainly being used as fertilizer.

Peder Lund (Denmark) - Though I agree health is an important issue, I do not believe that investments on these aspects should precede income to provide two to three solid meals a day. Interviews with the beneficiaries of the poultry model in Bangladesh reveal that education and health are important issues and often the first investments made, once the beneficiary has satisfied the nutritional requirement within the household and stabilised income.

Horst W. Doelle (Austria) - I am sorry, but health goes before food in my opinion. I cannot agree that a family with 10 hens cannot use a small 6 m3 anaerobic plastic digester. What is the use of more food if the enormous health dangers from hens and/or chicken manure in general cause sickness and death? I am sorry, but I am very frustrated to see recommendations, which do not look after the health of people, as we still have 80% of the world population without any basic sanitation. It is in these areas where we have the 11 million children dying each year. To alleviate poverty and starvation, we must think and incorporate basic sanitation.

What is the good of trying to get people out of poverty and starvation when you dramatically increase the health hazard and risk? To put chicken manure raw onto the field is a severe health hazard. Try it in our countries and you will get a very severe reaction from the authorities. In removing poverty and starvation we need integrated biosystems, which not only provide food but also provide eliminating health hazards. One cannot go without the other.

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Krishna Kaphle and J. H. Lin (Nepal) - Taking lesson from the success of Bangladesh rural poultry scheme for poverty elimination, Nepalese government adopted it to experiment in remote rural Far Western part of the country. Some villages where the programme was implemented lied close to wild life habitat and the ecological impact of disease transfer brought in by the birds, their density resulted disease harbouring and spread to native fowls, wild birds was never assessed. The involved participants of the programme hailing from backward class of the society will not hesitate eating a dead bird rather then carefully disposing it. The effect of such activities on human health, the improper disposal of the birds viscera and its wide scale contamination by crow, dog to the surrounding areas cannot be ruled out, what is the consequence?

The incidences of parasitic diseases take an example of tapeworm littered environment resulted in the poultry droppings finding its way in the body of the toddler or adult member of the family or neighbour cannot be ruled out. I was interested in knowing the human health vis a vis this model, disease prevention in this model, and areas of improvement if implemented in other countries e.g Nepal.

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Horst W. Doelle (Austria) - I would like to see some statistics on the suggestion stated by Jonathan Bell. We certainly have the statistics on chicken and poultry as well as other animals on health hazard if there is no sanitation. I suggest to Jonathan to look up the statistics in the latest UNDP and WHO reports. How do you control 5-10 hens in a homestead? They will soon become 20 or more according to my experience. He also forgets that a family requires sanitation for its own excreta. I am just amazed that we do so obviously neglect health standards and requirements, maybe because we in the developed world take it as granted

Response from Jonathan Bell (Danida, Bangladesh)

1. I feel the onus is on those who are suggesting that poultry are a health hazard to produce the statistics.

2. Actually chickens offer benefits to human health. For one thing, they eat mosquito eggs. In Bangladesh mosquitoes carry the deadly Dengue Fever, for which there is no cure. Without the village chickens life would be worse for the villagers.

3. In the Bangladesh poultry model the "key rearers", which constitute 95% of all the entrepreneurs have 9 hens, but no cocks. So there is not so much danger of huge flocks of rampaging chickens threatening people. Not to mention the classic restraints of chicken diseases [not human diseases - these are not zoonoses], predators and lack of food to growth of village chicken populations.

4. Human sanitation is a separate question. Actually, Danida, which supports the Smallholder Livestock Development Project in Five Southern Districts of Bangladesh, also supports a human sanitation programme in the same area.

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vHorst W. Doelle (Austria) - I just wrote an article on 'Biotechnology and Human Development' and cited all the relevant recent literature I mentioned and you requested. Please look at http://www.ejb.org/content/vol4/issue3/index.html

The statistics of 2001 say,
826 million people are starving
1.2 billion people are living on US$ 1/day
2.4 billion people have no basic sanitation
11 million children under the age of 10 are dying each year mainly on infectious disease.

Surely your veterinarian expert should be aware of the Salmonella problem in chicken and that this is an almost deadly disease for children. I like Lylian's comment, that anaerobic digestion can overcome all this even in small digester of less than 2 m3. Why do we do only half of the job and not consider all the aspects of the poor people. My simple question is: why do we only look at food to live, when life can be shortened through increased pollution and danger of infectious disease. What a choice: starve and die or live, get sick and die. We can do better than that as all the technology is available and cheap.

Intervention from D. Hadrill - I agree with Jonathan Bell, that Dr Kaphle's concerns regarding human health risks from family poultry may be exaggerated. In particular, tapeworms of chickens are not a risk for humans. The dung of a chicken infested with tapeworms would contain tapeworm eggs that are ingested by and develop in that worm's preferred intermediate host, that is, earthworms or insects. Another chicken consuming the insect or earthworm may get the tapeworm.

Regarding protecting small flocks against diseases such as ND, I feel sure that other contributors, such as Dr Robyn Alder, will have more to say about appropriate vaccination.

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R. Branckaert (France) -Certainly some possibilities exist of disease transmission between Poultry and Humans. Until now, poultry tapeworms have never been mentioned as a possible source of infestation for humans. The most important problem is certainly salmonellosis. It seems difficult to eradicate it as it is spread as well by domestic than by wild birds. Therefore, it could easily be spread in scavenging conditions. Until now, most efforts have been concentrated on Newcastle's disease prevention with some success. I am afraid, that, in the near future, - with the progressive eradication of ND - research should be conducted on the possibility to develop cheap polyvalent vaccines, combining ND, Salmonellosis ( pullorosis ) and Variolo-diphteria

Anders Permin (Denmark) -Yes it was nice to have a discussion on the zoonotic aspects of keeping poultry in the backyard. One of the beauties of the smallholder poultry model is certainly that there is almost no risk of transmitting diseases from the chickens to the humans. This is completely different when discussing for example pig production where we see high rates of Taenia solium (which can establish in humans either in the gut or in the brain causing epilepsy).

Trevor Bagust & Juergen Lohr (Australia) - We all perhaps can benefit from noting these veterinary facts for public health aspects of the recognised zoonotic i.e., animal-human spread infections of chooks (in Australian = chickens!)

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Paratyphoid - the zoonotic disease role of motile (paratyphoid) salmonella in semi-intensive production units is not well documented but seems to being exaggerated by some commentators who are not fully conversant with the scientific facts. In laying stock transmission is predominantly by the trans-ovarian route. Therefore, control must be and can be achieved at the breeder/hatchery level (Lohr et al, 1998) [Salmonella Control in Layer Parent Stock and End Products]. In Germany all commercial pullets are required by law to be vaccinated. Both attenuated and live vaccines are available. In broilers transmission from bird to bird (horizontal spread) is more important.

According to Humphrey et al, 1989 (Epidemiol. Inf. 103, 415-423), only 1% of naturally infected hens shed salmonellae. Usually the number of organisms that is shed is well below the infectious dose. Environmental factors, such as long storage at high ambient temperatures, poor storage hygiene, insufficient cooking, use of raw eggs, will be needed for small numbers of salmonellae to multiply within the infected egg until infectious dose levels are reached. The salmonella risk, if at all present, can also be minimised by producer/consumer education. This includes short storage (maybe in a community cooler or by fast turn-over), separation of chicken and human accommodation, instructions about basic hygienic measures such as washing the hands before entering the house and eating, and of course, adequate cooking of food.

Chicken parasites and human health: There is no evidence so far that any of the common chicken endoparasites (e.g. coccidia, capillaria, ascaridia, syngamus, tape worms) are transmissible to man. Tapeworms usually require intermediate hosts before reaching the chicken as final host. The situation with ectoparasites is different. Mites, the chicken soft tick and the chicken flea can all attack humans and lead to unpleasant bites. Strict separation of human and chicken houses is therefore also necessary. A useful review of the parasitic diseases in Indonesian poultry was carried in the Jan 2001 issue of Poultry International, pp44-49 and summarises sensible control measures for parasites in caged poultry, and especially the periodical removal of droppings.

The application of NDV vaccine can be another (minor) risk because the vaccine virus can cause transitory conjunctivitis in humans, however, leaving no permanent damage. Staff and farmers handling the vaccine must be instructed accordingly.

The role of campylobacter from chickens in cases of severe human campylobacter enteritis is an area of considerable dispute between human and veterinary medicine. Campylobacter organisms are not uncommon in chicken intestines but they are not found in the egg. Rather, infection of the meat occurs after slaughter and campylobacteriosis is a problem of slaughter and processing hygiene.

Avian chlamydophilosis (formerly chlamydiosis) is a serious zoonosis, but is an infectious problem in ducks and turkeys, rather than in chickens.

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General Comment: Being alive carries daily risks for any human being, risks and almost no food item - be it of animal or plant origin-will be sterile i.e., free of bacteria in its original state. Nonetheless, the content of a normal egg is usually sterile, thanks to various bactericidal substances in the egg white. But to eat, cook them!

Contrary to the undernourished individual, a well-fed body with fully functional primary and secondary defence mechanisms can usually cope with this situation. Furthermore, an adequately fed child will have a much better chance to develop its physical and intellectual capacity, and to find a way out of poverty than an undernourished child will have had. The benefits of better nutrition for people living in impoverished circumstances will therefore, by far outweigh the risks of sporadic food-borne infections which might (and in almost all cases are not!) being spread by migratory chickens in villages.

Mamadou Sangare (Mali) - Comments are clear about the low hazard with chicken manure, how is it with ducks manure? Excuse my ignorance, but we have an old saying in Mali "Duck farms prosper on the tombs of children in the household."

Krishna Kaphle and J. H. Lin (Nepal) - I would like to see some comments on sanitation, as it is a neglected area in small-scale poultry raising. As we are aware about the alarming scale of arsenic content in drinking water source of Bangladesh, the available safe sources of drinking water have to be preserved. Besides the outbreak of diseases like IBD, ND finding their way into such farms and ways and means to protect the investment of these poor farms need to be highlighted.

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Krishna Kaphle - Ethnoveterinary is and plays a crucial part in backyard poultry raising. I personally feel that it should also be given a permanent place whenever we discuss about small-scale poultry/livestock farming. I would be interested if fellow participants could shed some light from their experiences to help other audiences like me. I would also like to know the strategy that the designer of such a model has regarding the continuity of ethnoveterinary medicines incorporated with judicious use of synthetic medicines for better and sustainable results.

Oluyinka Olukosi (Nigeria)- The discussions about the impact of poultry on human health have opened up my eyes into an area I have not considered very seriously before. I only wish to add, in this regard, that simple ethnoveterinary practice may reduce the impact of cross infestation of ectoparasites from chickens to man if it is combined with strict hygiene codes which are, of course, the tenets of any sound system.

Krishna Kaphle (Nepal)- I would again like to draw the attention of the participants to ethnoveterinary medicines and like recently developed medicinal egg rich in monoclonal antibodies, we may work out to enhance the medical and nutritive value of the traditional products with out risking complication of non-acceptance. I feel we should think of every option available and judge how best it can fit to the model for its improvement.

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