Myanmar Pig Partnership Project Expansion

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Diarrhoea and vomiting, caused by contaminated food of animal origin, are deeply damaging but often unrecognized blights on human health and well-being, particularly for poor people in low and middle income countries. Farming households are also likely exposed to these zoonotic animal-derived infections through direct contact, as well as through consumption of contaminated foods of animal origin. Our ongoing ZELS-funded project, "An integrated management-based approach for surveillance and control of zoonoses in emerging livestock systems: Myanmar Pig Partnership (MPP)" has already pointed towards opportunities for culturally sensitive and livelihood-relevant interventions to improve animal health, farm productivity, rational use of antibiotics and awareness of occupational and food-borne zoonotic risks. These opportunities for improved livelihoods of farmers exist on farms with lesser as well as greater intensities of production.We propose that information on the human burden of foodborne and occupational (directly acquired) zoonotic disease from pig meat, and better understanding of the pathways for medical support of affected persons, would help greatly in the design and pilot delivery of preventive health advice for consumers as well as farmers, building further on the data already acquired in MPP. We also propose that better knowledge of this human burden of pig or pig meat-acquired disease would help us in prioritising and broadeing which government departments and policy makers we should talk to in order to make best use of our newly emergent data from MPP. This data includes detailed information on existing hygiene practices at slaughter and processing, and practices relating to selection, use and recording of antibiotics in pigs. The key objectives of this proposal are: (1) To set up pilot diarrhoea surveillance to obtain preliminary data on the leading pathogens causing infectious diarrhoea in Myanmar, focusing on our already identified farming households but also on acute hospital admissions in Yangon City.(2) To develop, pilot and evaluate consumer and occupational health advice for the prevention of pig and pig meat associated zoonoses in Myanmar.(3) To convert research outputs from the originally funded Myanmar Pig Partnership into useful evidence presented in the best format for informing policy development in food safety and antibiotic resistance, for strengthening veterinary expertise in pig health management, and to enable understanding and uptake of relevant finds by the widest possible group of stakeholders.