Assessment of Veterinary Extension Service And Public Perception on Zoonotic Disease at Robe Veterinary Clinic of Bale Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Introduction

Extension services provide farmers with important information, such as patterns in crop prices, new seed varieties, animal man-agement, and marketing [1]. In agricultural sector, knowledge and awareness on previous technologies elicits more demand that gives signal to the input delivery systems. Hence, extension and input distribution systems are often kept to be reciprocally rein¬forcing [2]. An ideal extension service system also provides feed¬back from farmers to research centers [3]. Extension activities are often aimed to improve farmers’ knowledge, attitude and practice to use of their resources and albeit technologies that are available to them [4]. In this regard, the term ‘veterinary extension’ has been defined as an informal education provided by veterinarians on ani¬mal health and zoonosis to the rural livestock owners [5].

Livestock sector in Ethiopia is an integral part of agriculture, ac¬counting for about 45% of the total value of agricultural produc¬tion and supporting the livelihoods of over 65% human population. More than 80% of the population lives in rural areas in contact with livestock out of which 30% of them are still in poverty [6, 7]. In terms of livestock population, Ethiopia leads African countries with an estimated 59 million cattle, 30 million sheep, 23 million goats, 1 million camels, and 57 million poultry, 11 million equines and a small number of pigs [8]. On top of their use as a source of foods, product of comodities and services to the people, the livestock also provides 10% the countries export earnings, main¬ly through live animal export. The total supply of animal source foods in the country, including net trade, translates into a per capita consumption of 9 kg meat, 56.2 liters of milk and about 4 eggs per year. Cattle products, beef and cow milk contribute to almost 80% of all meat and milk consumption. Market transactions are largely in urban areas as self-consumption dominates in rural areas [9]

In Ethiopia, where animals are used for transportation, farming, cloths, source of fuel and dietary protein, there is very close con-tact among humans, animals, wildlife and the surrounding envi-ronment. In the absence of appropriate animal and human health care and preventative health services, this cross-contact creates public health risks via zoonotic disease transmission with enor¬mous economic consequences [10, 11].

Health extension services for knowledge transfer from profession-als to society play an important role in the prevention and con-trol of infectious diseases. Before 2015 in Ethiopia, there was no well-developed national strategy to teach society about animal health and zoonosis. This important gap created a lack of percep¬tion of society about the disease. Later in 2015 multidisciplinary One-Health initiative workshops developed a list of Rabies, an¬thrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis and echinococcosis as the top five priority zoonotic diseases the greatest national concern in Ethiopia [12].

Veterinary health extension is a sector of animal health service to the community that can provide information through continuing education, informal training, consultations and materials to prac-titioners as well as animal health packages to the animal owners. Although improvement in animal health care correlates with better public health care, the control of zoonotic disease in Ethiopia has been partially neglected between veterinary and medical profes¬sionals [5, 13]. Currently, there is an increasing trend in the number of universities that produce veterinary professionals and veterinary infrastructures that could provide the platform for animal health extension services in the country. But still, the extension service so far given by the veterinarian is very limited and mainly targets the convectional treating sick animals, providing seasonal vaccination and occasionally delivery of artificial insemination. Intensive an-timicrobial usage becoming the routine attempt for treatment and control of animal disease; which usually end-up with antibiotic resistance [5]. There is a limited attempt by the veterinarian to transfer the knowledge about risks of animal disease transmission to the animal owners and community at large [14].

Zoonosis is an infectious disease that is transmitted from animals to humans. Of the microbial diseases affecting humans 61% are zoonotic [15]. The transmission may occur through direct contact with the animal, through vectors, or food or water contamination. Globally, zoonosis is said to account for 75% of all emerging pathogens [16, 17]. The impact of zoonotic diseases on society includes animal and productivity loss, livelihood income loss and human health burden which further causes societal and economic loss [18]. There is high zoonotic disease health problem with many farmers still practicing poor livestock production [19, 20].

The control strategies for zoonotic diseases largely rely on the cre¬ation of public health awareness. In a resource-scarce developing country like Ethiopia, improving knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of animal owners about infectious disease and zoonosis is critical to contain the spread of zoonotic diseases [21, 22]. In this regard, veterinarians are one of the key people in multidisciplinary and community-based health services. They could able to deliver veterinary extension services to animal owners. However, partic¬ularly in Ethiopia, there are no clear policies and allocated veter¬inary professional positions that teach the community about pri-mary animal health care. Hence the present study was intended to assess the current veterinary extension service to the anmal owners as well as perception of animal owners on zoonotic diseases at Robe veterinary clinic of Bale zone.

Material and methods

Study Area

Robe, also called Bale-Robe, is a town located in Sinana district of the Bale Zone, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. It is one of the consistently surplus producer zones of the region. The capital city of the zone, Robe town is located about 430 kilometers from Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa. It has a latitude and longitude of 7°7′N 40°0′E with an elevation of 2,492 meters (8,176 ft) above sea level. Robe receives a relatively high amount of rainfall which is balanced in distribution pattern. According to available data, the mean annual rainfall ranges from 590 mm in the summer and 560 mm in the winter season. The area is highly populous, highly fertile and suitable for agricultural activities. The 2007 national census reported a total population for Robe of 44,382, of whom 22,543 were men and 21,839 were women [23]. This study area was choosen because of high demographic dependence on agricul¬ture, presence of animal-hunan interface and absence of informa¬tion on the study topic.

<img src="https://www.opastpublishers.com/scholarly-images/4707-69cb86609e519-assessment-of-veterinary-extension-service-and-public-percep.png" width="500" height="300">
Figure 1: Map of Bale Zone. Source: Duressa et al. [24].

Study Subject

The study subject was animal owners who has an ultimate contact with animal. Hence animal owners who brought their animal for diagnosis to Bale Robe veterinary clinic were considered as the study subject in the subpopulation of animal owners found in the study area.

Study Design

A questionnaire-based cross-sectional study design was employed from April to August 2021 to assess the current veterinary exten-sion service to the anmal owners as well as perception of animal owners on zoonotic diseases at Robe veterinary clinic of Bale zone, Oromia regional state. Study subjects were randomely se-lected from animal owners in queue at veterinary clinic and struc¬tured and pre-tested questionnaire format was used.

Sample Size Determination

The sample size was determined based on derivation sample size [25]. Where N = required sample size, Pexp = expected prevalence and d = desired absolute precision. Since there was no previous data on the expected people knowing a particular subject in the study area, the expected prevalence was likely set to 50% (and er-ror was set to 5% and confidence level at 95%) and then the sample size was set at 384 subjects.

N= 1.962. Pexp(1 −Pexp)

                     d2

Data Collection

Questionnaire Survey 

A detailed and organized questionnaire format was designed in an attempt to generate baseline information related and used for the face-to-face interview to evaluate the current Veterinary extension service status, perception of the community about the common and zoonotic disease [26]. The questionnaire contains questions that can evaluate the perception of the respondents about zoonotic and infectious disease's importance, their transmission cycle and major clinical signs in humans and animals. In addition, animal owner perception and practice on the prevention and control of the dis¬ease were accessed.

Data Management and Analysis

The collected data were stored in the Excel Microsoft (MS ex-cel 2007) and descriptive statistics and chi-square (χ2) correlation analysis were performed using Statistical Program of Social Sci¬ences (SPSS) version 16.0 software packages (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). For all analysis performed, 95% CI and P-value < 0.05 was set for statistical significance of an estimate.

Result

Socio-Demographic Characteristics of the Respondents From Table 1, the majority of respondents were male (78.1 %) and the remaining (21.9 %) are female. The maximum and minimum Ages were (68) and (16) years. Concerning marital and education status, (64.3%) of the respondents are married followed by unmar- ried (28.4%) and (20.6%) of the respondents are illiterate. Most of the respondents that participated in this study were farmers and merchants in which account for a proportion of (40.1%) and (33.3 %) respectively. The highest number of the respondents (65.4%) had come from around robe.

                                                                   Table 1: Socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents

Perception of Respondents About Veterinary Extension Ser-vice and Production Management Practice

The highest number of the respondents (44%) had owned mixed-type livestock and followed by only cattle (30.5%) and sheep and goats (7.8%). The fundamental questions for this study were to find out whether the respondents were trained about animal production, animal management, and animal health and how to control the animal disease. As shown in (Table 2) results reveals respondents (66.1%) and (70.8%) were not trained about animal production, health and zoonosis, which indicates that the exten-sion service in the study area was poor. Regarding the presence of consultants in the study area, most of the respondents (88.5%) had no professionals who had been consulted them about animal health and management. Analysis of the attitude of respondents toward extension services indicates that all of the respondents (100%) agree on the impor¬tance of animal health extension service. The major type of feed source for their animals mentioned by the respondents was con¬centrated plus grazing (53.6%) natural pasture (grazing) also used in the study area (31.2%). Regarding the estrous cycle (92.2%) of the respondents do not know how to detect the early estrous sign and only half (51.6%) of respondents bring their animals to the veterinary clinic at the proper time in search of the artificial insemination service.

                                                       Table 2: Veterinary Extension Service and Production Management Practice In The Area

Major Animal Problem

The largest problem they faced for their animals mentioned by the respondents ( 92%) were shortage (expensiveness) of feed followed by disease problem (3 %) and unavailability of vaccine (1%) (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Major animal production and health constraints in the area. A) The Pie-chart was drawn using the percent of respondents who selected each constraint. B) The Bar-chart shows the pattern of veterinary clinic distance from the residents. The average veterinary clinic distance from the farmer’s resident was calculated.

Perception of the Society About The Infectious and Zoonotic Disease

Rabies: Respondents are relatively has better awareness about Rabies. 96.6% of them mentioned Rabies by name as a zoonot-ic disease. According to the respondents, the well-known Rabies transmission from animal to human is through dog bites(Table 3).

Anthrax: Anthrax was mentioned by name by 33.03% of respon¬dents and the transmission route mentioned by 43.3% of the re¬spondent was ingestion.

Tuberculosis: About only 5.2% of respondents had known Tuber¬culosis by name. The knowledge and awareness of Tuberculosis as a zoonotic disease in the respondents interviewed was very low.

Foot and Mouth Disease: Of the total respondents only 0.3% of them know about foot and mouth disease by name. Some animal owners percieves FMD as zoonotic dieseas.

Trypanosomiasis: The overall proportion of respondents that know Trypanosomiasis was 0.6%, few of them described Trypano¬somiasis as a zoonotic disease that transmits to humans.

                                                                         Table 3: Perception on Infectious and Zoonotic Disease

Practical Assessment of the Respondent About Veterinary Clinic, Vaccination & Slaughter House

All of the respondents agreed to treat their animal when they get sick out of which 96.4% of them have brought their animal into the veterinary clinic, while still, 3.6% prefers to use traditional medicine to cure the diseased animal. Regarding vaccination more than half of the respondents (63.5%) fail to vaccinate their animals regularly and (83.6%) have lack information/awareness about its importance.

Based on questions raised concerning the practical assessment of participants in the questionnaire, almost all 364 (94.8%) of the re¬spondents have the habit of consuming raw meat and the majority of them practiced (99.2%) backyard slaughter in their home. In addition 360 (93.8%) of them consume raw milk (Table 4).

                             Table 4: Practical assessment of the respondent about veterinary clinic, vaccination & slaughterhouse

Evaluation of factors affecting KAP on Veterinary Extension Service

From table 5, KAP of the participant were evaluated based on their demography include their sex, age, education level, occupation, and marital status. The result showed that knowledge-related vac¬cination male participants had better knowledge than females and participants who attained secondary and college had better aware- ness and perception on the advantage of vaccination this associa¬tion was statistically significant (P<0.05). The current study also revealed that there is significant variation among the respondent (P<0.05) towards the zoonotic disease (we used here Rabies as an example) in which widowed and illiterate had lower knowledge and awareness (Table 6).

                                     Table 5: Factors associated with awareness towards animal vaccination among study participants

                Table 6: Factors Associated With Knowledge Towards Zoonotic Disease Among Study Participants

Discussion

Based on the questionnaire surveyed employed about veterinary health extension services in the study area, the result revealed that the majority of respondents explains the absence of veterinary consultants, lack of ccess to training about animal production and health. Respondents also confirmed that shortage (expensiveness) of animal feed and presence of diseases are the front constraints of their livestock production. Their knowledge of estrous tection to timely present their animal for artificial insemination as well as the used natural pastures and feed supplement need continues update. Almost the entire respondent argued that there is high demand for animal extension services.

The current study also revealed that the knowledge of the respon¬dent in the study area about zoonotic disease is good in which comparable finding was observed by who indicated that all respon¬dents knew animals’ disease can also affect humans. The most fre¬quently known zoonotic diseases among the respondents in the study area were Rabies ( 96.6%), followed by Anthrax (33.07%), Tuberculosis (4.52%), Trypanosomiasis (0.6%) and foot and mouth disease (o.3 %). A similar finding has been reported in other parts of the country [27, 28].

In the current study about (96.1%) respondents have a high level of knowledge about Rabies that the modes of transmission men- tioned by respondents were bites (51.8%), bites and contact with saliva (14.7%). The current result agrees with the previous finding from Shashemene and the finding in Dodola Town that was report¬ed by [29, 30]. In contrast, there is a low level of awareness about the zoonotic nature of Tuberculosis (4.2%) as compared to the re¬port of who indicated that respondents in Addis Ababa mentioned bovine Tuberculosis (88.54%). The present finding is also lower than the finding by Jimma town who reported that the perception on the dog bite reaches 94.3%. The difference comes out due to information might be acquired more easily through media and hu¬man health extension service agents than in the current study area and extension service in the study area is low [31].

Concerning the treatment, they prefer for their animal about (3.6% ) of the study participants use modern (veterinary clinic) in which had high variation with the report of studies conducted in and around Gondar town, reported about (62.2%) of the study partici¬pants had strong beliefs in traditional medicine [32].

Regarding consumption of animal products like raw milk and raw meat, the present study revealed that the majority of participants (93.8%) and (94.8%) were used consumed respectively. Similar findings were observed by with (89.8%) and (99 %) respectively [33]. According to the current study, the perception of vaccination among study participants includes gender, age, kebele, educational status and occupation there was significantly (P<0.05) associated. Concerning the perception of Rabies as a zoonotic disease, there was a significantly (P<0.05) different level of awareness among the different respondent groups which can imply that they have different levels of knowledge about zoonotic perception of Rabies and transmission to humans by biting of dog. In conclusion, the present study indicated that all the stakeholders’ should have to fulfill their responsibility to improve and distribute extension ser¬vice among the community and awareness creation and training programs of Zoonotic disease transmission, treatment, prevention, and control should be provided to communities.

Conclusion and Recommendation

The study shows that veterinarians were not much involved in vet-erinary extension services. As a result, the awareness of animal owners about animal production improvement and animal health and zoonotic risks of infectious animal diseases was not satisfac¬tory. This is reflected by the malpractice of animal owners which exposes them to zoonotic diseases like consuming raw milk and raw meat and backyard animal slaughtering practices. There was no one-health approach implemented so far. Hence, to control zoonotic disease veterinary extension services and disease control programs need to be implemented. Scheduled animal vaccination, raising community awareness about sanitary conditions and dis¬posal of food of animal origin, understanding the epidemiology of disease and transmission and prevention should be applied. On top of this, multispectral collaborative one-health efforts need to be made among veterinarians and public health specialists to combat zoonotic disease.

Acknowledgments

The authors extend gratitude to Hawassa University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine for the provision of academic guidance and materials used to write this manuscript. The authors are also thank-ful to the Robe veterinary clinic officers, animal owners and other study participants. A preprint has previously been published [34].

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Hawassa University, Ethiopia.

Availability of Data and Materials

The data supporting the findings are available from the corre-sponding author upon request.

Authors Contribution

SAN was involved in the conception of the study, supervision, ed¬iting and approval of the manuscript. AA was involved in sample collection, laboratory investigation, data analysis and preparation of the draft manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate

The study was approved by the research proposal review com-mittee of the faculty of veterinary medicine, Hawassa University. Written informed consent was obtained for the questionnaires in¬terview and the study was carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

Competiting Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interests

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