Towards a bottom-up understanding of antimicrobial use and resistance on the farm: A knowledge, attitudes, and practices survey across livestock systems in five African countries.

The nutritional and economic potentials of livestock systems are compromised by the emergence and spread of antimicrobial resistance. A major driver of resistance is the misuse and abuse of antimicrobial drugs. The likelihood of misuse may be elevated in low- and middle-income countries where limited professional veterinary services and inadequately controlled access to drugs are assumed to promote non-prudent practices (e.g., self-administration of drugs). The extent of these practices, as well as the knowledge and attitudes motivating them, are largely unknown within most agricultural communities in low- and middle-income countries. The main objective of this study was to document dimensions of knowledge, attitudes and practices related to antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance in livestock systems and identify the livelihood factors associated with these dimensions. A mixed-methods ethnographic approach was used to survey households keeping layers in Ghana (N = 110) and Kenya (N = 76), pastoralists keeping cattle, sheep, and goats in Tanzania (N = 195), and broiler farmers in Zambia (N = 198), and Zimbabwe (N = 298). Across countries, we find that it is individuals who live or work at the farm who draw upon their knowledge and experiences to make decisions regarding antimicrobial use and related practices. Input from animal health professionals is rare and antimicrobials are sourced at local, privately owned agrovet drug shops. We also find that knowledge, attitudes, and particularly practices significantly varied across countries, with poultry farmers holding more knowledge, desirable attitudes, and prudent practices compared to pastoralist households. Multivariate models showed that variation in knowledge, attitudes and practices is related to several factors, including gender, disease dynamics on the farm, and source of animal health information. Study results emphasize that interventions to limit antimicrobial resistance should be founded upon a bottom-up understanding of antimicrobial use at the farm-level given limited input from animal health professionals and under-resourced regulatory capacities within most low- and middle-income countries. Establishing this bottom-up understanding across cultures and production systems will inform the development and implementation of the behavioral change interventions to combat antimicrobial resistance globally.

Long-term changes in the spatial distribution of lumpy skin disease hotspots in Zimbabwe.

Outbreaks of lumpy skin disease (LSD) are reported almost every year in Zimbabwe but not much is known regarding whether the pattern of the disease is changing in response to major socio-economic programmes such as the land reform launched in 2000. In this paper, geo-referenced data of LSD cases was used to detect and map significant LSD hotspots over a 20-year period (1995-2014). The hotspots were then overlaid on top of a land tenure map to explore whether hotspots have spread or persist in some land tenure types. The main results are that LSD outbreaks are on the rise and the disease is spreading throughout the country with areas formerly large-scale commercial farms now experiencing more outbreaks. These results suggest that regular vaccination should be now recommended in most districts in the country.