POULTRY | ANTIBIOTIC | CABI

NAKASONGOLA - Floridah Mbabazi, a smallholder poultry farmer at Kakooge in Nakasongola district, was all smiles when she stocked 300 day-old broilers in July this year.

Given her experience in the trade, she was hopeful of making a killing after about two months. But as fate would have it, flu (nasal discharge), cough and diarrhoea attacked the flock in the fourth week and killed 280 of the 300 birds. 

“Earlier, I had vaccinated the birds against infections like Gumboro and Newcastle. I did not just fold my hands and look as they die. I paid a local veterinarian who diagnosed and treated the birds with antibiotics, in vain,” Mbabazi narrates. 

“I lost sh3m, my capital inclusive, yet sh2m was a loan I had acquired to boost my farm. Now I have paused the business.”

Egg production at one of the prominent poultry farms at Namugongo.

Mbabazi is not the only poultry farmer crying foul over deaths resulting mainly from bacterial infections.

Veterinary experts say poultry farmers in Uganda are registering increasing levels of antibiotic resistance, whereby birds are no longer responsive to the available antibiotic drugs, leading to deaths and causing losses to farmers.

Many farmers have been forced to quit the business.

Emmanuel Kunobwa, the veterinary officer for Buvuma district, says non-responsiveness to antibiotics among the infected chicken is mostly attributed to over-use of antibiotic drugs.

Layers at a poultry farm at Nsawo Namugongo.

He explains that antibiotics contain some bacteria programmed to kill infectious bacteria within the poultry suffering from bacterial-related infections, such as cough.

In 2018, Hindawi, a journal of veterinary medicine, reported a  study conducted on chicken from eastern and central Uganda, which revealed that 70% were resistant to antimicrobial drugs.

The resistance to tetracycline alone for chicken from central Uganda was 51% and 55% for those in eastern. 

The study shows that a high prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in Uganda’s chicken is widespread due to misuse of antimicrobials during rearing.

It was stressed that antibiotic drugs are readily available and administered by farmers without prescriptions from experts.

Layers in a battery cage.

The International Journal of Veterinary Science and Medicine, volume 9, 2021,  points at penicillin, tetracycline and potentiated Sulphonamides as some of the old antibiotics that have existed on  Uganda’s market for decades.

Another study published in IntechOpen, an online journal, on November 5, 2018, shows that antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be transferred from poultry products to humans, yet they can as well be transferred from humans to poultry flocks.

The study also shows that worldwide, poultry is one of the widespread food industries, and its products are among the highly consumed, as over 90 billion tonnes of chicken meat are produced every year.

However, a lot of antibiotics are employed during poultry production in several countries, which threatens the safety of these products due to antimicrobial residues that increase the possibility, development and spread of microbial resistance in poultry settings.

Broiler chicks in a battery cage.

Kunobwa explains that with time, the infectious deadly bacteria within the affected birds get used to the programmed bacteria within the antibiotics.

This gives them room to build a mechanism that shields and enables them to stay alive and multiply alongside the antibiotic drugs that had to kill them when administered to the birds. 

Other triggers 

Besides the repetitive use of antibiotics, Kunobwa points at under dosage as another spark to antibiotic resistance.

He says this culminates from mistakes made by farmers when they fail to give these antibiotics to the birds in the appropriate amounts or under situations in which farmers buy half dose, instead of administering a complete dose due to insufficient funds, especially among the financially-constrained small-scale farmers Kunobwa notes that under dosage gives the birds some relief, but for a  few days. 

Samples taken from a layer at a poultry house at Nsawo Namugongo in Wakiso district.

“Sooner, they get down since the limited antibiotic amounts that you administered just weakened some of the available deadly bacteria, leaving  many of them alive, something which he says continues to weaken your birds’ organs, such as lungs in case of cough and flu, yet with time even the weakened dangerous bacteria gain strength, hence worsening your birds’ health situation.” 

He elaborates that critical health situations following under dosage rarely get better and most times the birds die, even when this time around the farmer got money and administered a full dose of the antibiotic drugs. 

He adds that since the initial amounts of antibiotics could not kill, but rather weaken the infectious bacteria, it gives them room to learn and understand the operation of the antibiotics administered, as well as gaining their strength and building a counter mechanism that shields them from any amounts of the same antibiotic used.

Kunobwa explains that at times poultry birds get into perplexing health complications that give farmers hard time to figure out exactly what they are suffering from, thereby tempting them to employ the try-and-error method of treatment in which they use multiple antibiotics.

He further explains that these different antibiotics are used on an assumption that when one misses,  then other types will be appropriate to save the birds.

“Remember, antibiotics contain some bacteria programmed to fight and kill infectious bacteria. So those antibiotics that were not needed while making your try-and-error treatment will be excreted through poultry droppings, which exposes their programmed bacteria to the infectious bacteria in the outside environment within the poultry house, especially those with poor hygiene. 

“When the hygiene is poor at your farm, and it so happens that your birds have been infected with contagious bacteria that got in touch with the programmed bacteria of the wrong drugs that were excreted, the birds become non-responsive to the antibiotics, irrespective of whether the bacteria have affected new birds or the same birds,” says Kunobwa.

Way forward

Emmanuel Kunobwa, a  veterinary officer for Buvuma district, advises that farmers should always seek advice from veterinary officers before taking any step to use antibiotics since they have limited knowledge about them. 

He stresses that samples should be taken from the infected birds by a proficient veterinary officer for proper diagnosis, before administering any kind of antibiotics.

“This  protects against the try-and-error method of treatment in  which some wrong antibiotics  are given to birds.”

There are also cases where farmers mistakenly think that their birds are sick and administer antibiotics to them. Kunobwa says there are situations in which poultry birds are seemingly sick when they are actually not.

“The birds may find themselves in such situations when they are too satisfied, since satisfaction may induce  some fatigue, thereby laying  down in a seemingly weak and dozy manner.” He also cites overcrowded poultry houses as another possible cause for such superficial illnesses.

“An overcrowded poultry house gives the chicken no room for movement and exercise, so they tend to sleep weakly. However, all these situations can be effectively ascertained by a veterinary officer,” Kunobwa explains.

He advises that if possible, every poultry farm should have a capable permanent veterinary officer. He also noted that improved hygiene and bio-security systems at the farm are also central in the fight against antibiotic resistance. 

For hygiene, he recommends the battery cage system since it keeps birds from direct contact with the likely infectious poultry droppings. 

Poultry sector at a glance  

The total poultry population in Uganda is estimated at about 32.6 million birds, 80% of which are free-range indigenous breeds and about 20% exotic breeds. 

It is estimated that in 2019, poultry meat exports earned Uganda $743,000, growing at an average annual rate of 342.46% since 1970.

This story is part of the CABI, SciDev. Net and Robert Bosch Stiftung Script science journalism project.