TRANS-BOUNDARY ANIMAL DISEASES (TADs) : CHALLENGES & MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR INDIA
Transboundary animal diseases are defined as those epidemic diseases which are highly contagious or transmissible and have the potential for very rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, causing serious socio-economic and possibly public health consequences. These diseases which cause a high morbidity and mortality in susceptible animal populations constitute a constant threat to the livelihood of livestock farmers and may also have a significant detrimental effect on national economies.
TADs are defined by FAO as those diseases that are of significant economic, trade and/or food security importance for a considerable number of countries; which can easily spread to other countries and reach epidemic proportions; and where control/management, including exclusion, requires cooperation between several countries. Such definition should include emerging infectious diseases (EIDs), most of which will likely be zoonoses, but of uncertain impact.
With rapidly increasing globalization, an associated risk of movement of trans-boundary diseases is emerging. Trans-boundary animal diseases represent a serious threat. They reduce production and productivity, disrupt local and national economies, and also threaten human health. This imposes far-reaching challenges for agricultural scientists on the critically important need to improve technologies in animal production and health in order to ensure food security, poverty alleviation and to aid economic growth. Considering that livestock rearing constitutes a significant share in the national economy of a developing country like ours, it is imperative to take up disease control initiatives. Measures are required to safeguard the livestock industry from epidemics of infectious diseases and to uphold safe international trade of livestock and their products. In this regard, it is essential to develop scientific and risk-based standards that facilitate the international trade in animal commodities.
Livestock farming is one of the important sources of livelihood to rural farmers in India, particularly landless farmers. Increasing contribution of livestock to socioeconomic development and poverty alleviation are well recognized. A healthy livestock is pride of any country. However, rapid trend of globalization has brought upon challenges in maintaining healthy herds of livestock. The emerging infections of foreign origin could spread across national geographical borders and cause havoc. Consequently, there will be an emergence and spread of new disease in the region which was once free from the disease.
Livestock constitutes an important component of our agricultural system. Livestock provides for livelihood, regular income and women empowerment in rural India. It is unimaginable to have a human society without a healthy population of livestock. Livestock not only provide food security but also improve the quality of human life and make a significant contribution to national economy. Several thousands of small and marginal farmers in the country depend solely on agricultural farming and livestock husbandry. The existence of infectious diseases affecting farm animals has been historically recorded for over hundreds of years. However, factors associated with modernization of human societies such as changes in agro-ecological conditions and global marketing, have led to increased incidences of animal diseases. This is mainly due to spread of disease causing pathogens across borders. With increasing movement of human population, livestock and livestock products, fish and fish products, and plants and plant products within and across countries, together with climate changes, threat from transboundary diseases is intensifying. Transboundary diseases are highly contagious and have the potential for rapid spread, irrespective of national borders, causing serious socioeconomic consequences (Otte et al., 2004). Traditionally, trade, traffic and travel have been instruments of disease spread. Now, changing climate across the globe is adding to the misery. Climate change is creating new ecological platform for the entry and establishment of pests and diseases from one geographical region to another (FAO, 2008). Several new transboundary diseases emerge, and old diseases reemerge, exhibiting increased chances for unexpected spread to new regions, often over great distances. Trans-boundary livestock diseases such as Footand-mouth disease (FMD) have a direct economic impact by reducing agricultural and animal production (FAO/OIE, 2004; Domenech et al., 2006). Apart from causing suffering and mortality in susceptible population, the diseases adversely affect food safety, rural livelihoods, human health and international trade. The effect on national economy is felt by way of reduced access to international markets for the agricultural products and higher costs involved with inspection, treatment and compliance with international regulatory issues. Therefore it is necessary to effectively manage the transboundary diseases. In developing countries, control of these diseases is a key pathway for poverty alleviation. It is advisable to have an effective quarantine system in place to prevent entry and establishment of trans-boundary diseases. As a second line of defense, a country must also have in place a suitable contingency plans to respond quickly to high threat diseases. This could be achieved by timely application of scientific technology for rapid response. A disease outbreak in the neighboring country should always be taken as an immediate threat. Affected countries remain a threat to diseasefree nations and this is exemplified by recent incursions of FMD in FMD-free countries like Japan and Korea.
FAO’s Emergency Prevention System for animal health focuses on some 12-14 diseases of a transboundary nature (footand-mouth disease, rinderpest, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, sheep and goat pox, peste des petits ruminants, highly pathogenic avian influenza, Rift Valley fever, Newcastle disease, African and classical swine fever, equine encephalitidies, and under certain circumstances rabies and brucellosis).
The Globalisation and global trade in livestock products have created new challenges for national governments and international agencies (WHO, OIE, FAO) in order to predict, prevent and control transboundary animal diseases.
Transboundary animal diseases have the potential to:
• threaten food security;
• increase poverty levels in poor communities that have a high dependence on livestock farming for sustenance;
• cause major production losses for livestock products;
• add significantly to the cost of livestock production through the necessity of applying costly disease control measures;
• seriously disrupt or inhibit trade in livestock and livestock products either within a country or internationally;
• deteriorate public health in the case of those transboundary animal diseases which are zoonotic;
• cause environmental consequences through deaths in wildlife populations;
• cause animal welfare problems in affected animals.
It is imperative, therefore, that effective measures are taken to prevent, or at least minimise, the damage that such diseases may cause to the economy of the country, its human and animal population and the environment.
CHALLENGES IN DEALING WITH TRANS-BOUNDARY ANIMAL DISEASES (TADs)
The common ways of introduction of animal diseases to a new geographical location are through entry of live diseased animals and contaminated animal products. Other introductions result from the importation of contaminated biological products such as vaccines or germplasm or via entry of infected people (in case of zoonotic diseases). Even migration of animals and birds, or natural spreading by insect vectors or wind currents, could also spread diseases across geographical borders. The major animal diseases (Otte et al., 2004; FAO/OIE, 2004) under this category are provided in table 1.
Several challenges confront the strategies to combat TADs (FAO, 2008; Hitchcock et al., 2007). The major ones are presented below:
i. Requirement of novel systems having capacity of real-time surveillance of emerging diseases. For this, need driven research and service oriented scientific technology are a necessary at regional levels. Research emphasis has to be on specific detection and identification of the infectious agents.
ii. ii. Need for epidemiological methods to assess the dynamics of infections in the self and neighboring countries/regions. These methods should be of real-time utility.
iii. iii. Need for research and development of disease diagnostic reagents those do not need refrigeration (cold chain). More importantly, they should be readily available as well as affordable, for use in pen-side test format.
iv. iv. There are many diseases for which there is inadequate supply of vaccines or there are no vaccines available. Insufficient or lack of vaccine hampers the disease control programmes. Need to build up vaccine banks for stockpiling the important vaccines to implement timely vaccination.
v. v. Required availability of cost-effective intervention or disease control strategies. Even if a technology is available, it has to be cheaper to adopt at the point of use.
vi. vi. Need for ensuring public awareness of epidemic animal diseases. Many farmers are unaware of the emerging diseases. As such, unless reported to concerned regional authority, an emerging disease may go unnoticed.
vii. vii. Shortage of government and private funding for research on emerging animal disease problems. Government as well as industries dealing with animal health should take initiative and appropriate sponsorship in this regard.
viii. viii. Inadequate regulatory standards for safe international trade of livestock and livestock products. Otherwise, there would be a compromised situation in disease control strategies.
MANAGEMENT OF TADs
Various strategies need to be implemented to prevent and control trans-boundary diseases. These include:
i. Preventing incidence of trans-boundary diseases and disease transmitting vectors. Minimizing the movement of animals across the borders is essential. Also, prompt practice of quarantine protocol would reduce many transboundary diseases. Geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing could be utilized as early warning systems and in the surveillance and control of infectious diseases (Martin et al., 2007).
ii. ii. Reducing man-made disasters that have adverse implications on climate. Global warming and climate change either due to natural or anthropogenic influences are likely to predispose the animal population to newer infections (FAO, 2008). Therefore collective efforts are needed to minimize adverse climatic changes.
iii. iii. Interrupting the human-livestockwildlife transmission of infections. Diseases at the wildlife–livestock interface must become the focus for surveillance of emerging infectious diseases (Siembieda et al., 2011). Breaking the cycle of disease transmission would help control the spread of infections.
iv. iv. Establishing regional biosecurity arrangement with capacity for early disease warning system for surveillance, monitoring and diagnosis of emerging disease threats (Domenech et al., 2006).
v. v. Undertaking animal breeding strategies to create disease resistant gene pools. Enhancing host genetic resistance to disease by selective breeding of resistant animals is a smart strategy to improve natural immunity of animals to counter invading infections (Gibson et al., 2005).
vi. vi. Strengthening government policies to enhance agricultural/animal research and training, and technology development (Rweyemamu et al., 2006). More funds need to be allocated for this purpose to build goal oriented research programs in combating TADs.
vii. vii. Ensuring appropriate preparedness and response capacity to any emerging disease. Keeping in view that emerging infectious diseases are a constant threat, it is necessary to have early disease detection capacity and then implement a timely response (Hitchcock et al., 2007).
viii. viii. Intensification of international cooperation in preventing spread of TADs. As TADs are a concern globally, cumulative effort is needed at international level to minimize the spread of infectious diseases across the borders (Domenech et al., 2006; Hitchcock et al., 2007).
Compiled & Shared by- Team, LITD (Livestock Institute of Training & Development)
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