Flutrop CIRAD Avian Influenza

GRIPAVI is a research project aiming at a better understanding of avian influenza and Newcastle disease epidemiology. In terms of socio-economic research the project should improve knowledge on i) impacts of the disease and control strategies at smallholder level and ii) the role of commodity chains in disease epidemiology.

In Vietnam a preliminary study on the cost-benefit evaluation of HPAI vaccination in small scale production systems was implemented to address part of the first socio-economic objective of the project. 128 farmers were interviewed within two selected provinces (Long An in the South and Ha Tay in the North). As expected, vaccination appeared to be more cost effective for the farmer than culling and other strategies developed by farmers such as emergency sales at low price. Vaccination is economically preferable for smallholders and this preference for vaccination breaks even as soon as the prevalence is between 1.2 and 3.3%. The results were the most interesting when comparing BCRs and financial parameters according to farmers’ attitudes when facing an outbreak.

Prototype models for the financial evaluation of various vaccination strategies are currently being set up based on this preliminary data. More investigations are planned to clarify production and transactions costs at smallholder level in targeted species and production systems to get a better understanding of farmers’ attitudes.

Regarding the second objective, in Vietnam the research coming on line soon within the project will allow:

• to compare virus circulation in the field and at critical points of the commodity chains (studies performed in parallel) using an approach mixing both classical value chain analysis methodologies and HACCP methods;
• to model virus spread risk along the commodity chains using data collected by classical value chain analysis, risk factor identification and risk analysis;
• to study the re-organisation of the poultry commodity chains under a sanitary crisis: to assess structural changes within the supply chains, their determinants, the winners/losers, and their impacts on risks;

These results would be further combined at a later stage with a disease diffusion model in order to provide recommendations and tools to improve disease surveillance and control.