Eskinder Aklilu and Berhanu Abera complete their masters theses working with CH4D project

 Two Ethiopian Masters students have now completed their theses working with the project. Berhanu Abera has obtained the degree of MVSc in Tropical Veterinary Epidemiology from the College of Veterinary Medicine and Agriculture, Addis Ababa University. His thesis was entitled “A longitudinal study of epidemiological occurrence of antibodies against Newcastle Disease affecting village indigenous chickens in Horo and Jarso, Ethiopia.”

 

 

 

  Eskinder Aklilu has submitted “Phenotypic characteristics of two indigenous chicken ecotypes in Ethiopia” in November 2012 and is currently waiting to defend his thesis. Eskinder was also invited to speak on this topic at the 20th ESAP Annual Conference, “Livestock at the Crossroads of Climate Change and Variability”, which was held in  October 2012, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. We wish both Berhanu and Eskinder well in their future careers.

 

Ch4D project hands over the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research laboratory

The laboratory at the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, which was set up by the project two years ago, has now been handed over to the Ethiopian staff working in poultry research at the Institute. It maintains the capacity to continue serological, bacteriological and coprological testing, and it is hoped that it will continue to benefit both the farm on the research station, and others further afield.

 

Update on laboratory work in the chicken health for development project

Chickens have had a variety of samples taken; blood will allow us to look for different diseases which may be circulating in the population, and also allows us to look at the genetics of the local chicken population. We take faeces to look for internal parasites, such as worms and the protozoan parasite Eimeria, which is the cause of coccidiosis. Birds have also been screened for external parasites, and a large collection of lice and mites taken from the chickens has been brought back to the UK for identification.

Serum collected from chickens during the fieldwork has now been tested for antibodies to five different diseases: Newcastle disease virus, Infectious bursal disease virus (Gumboro), Mareks disease virus, Pasteurella multocida, and Salmonella enterica O9 serotypes. The examination of the faeces has also been completed. The work on the genotyping and parasite identification is well under way, and producing some interesting early results.

 

Update on fieldwork in the chicken health for development project

Back row:   Yordanos Mekonnen, Eshetu Zerihun, Said Mohammed, Michael Temesgen, Gelane Kumssa , Judy Bettridge,  Camilla Brena, Alemayehu Guteta, Jibril Yusuf
Front row:  Zelalem Gutu, Marisol Collins

All fieldwork has now been completed. The eight villages selected to take part in the study have now been visited a total of 4 times each over the last two years. Eighty households in each village have been interviewed, and had two of their chickens examined. This gives us a grand total of 640 households, and 1280 chickens sampled!

In addition, 520 of those households selected to take part were revisited 6 months after they were initially recruited to the study. This enabled us to find out what happened to the chickens we sampled, and will allow us to look for factors which may predict which chickens are more likely to survive.

 

Camilla Brena joins the chicken health in Ethiopia project team

Welcome to Camilla Brena, who has joined the project Team. Camilla is a vet who has just completed her PhD investigating Campylobacter in chickens. She has got straight into the project, participating in the last phase of the fieldwork and helping to complete the laboratory work in the lab at EIAR.

 

Rob Christley visits the ILRI-EIAR-Liverpool joint chicken health laboratory in Debre Zeit

Rob Christley, CH4D project Principal Investigator (PI) and Reader in Epidemiology at the University of Liverpool spent 7 days (beginning of May 2012) in Debre Zeit and Addis Ababa. As well as meeting with the team and partner organisations. Rob assisted Brehanu Abera to undertake data analysis. Brehanu, an MSc student at the Addis Ababa Veterinary School, has been working with the CH4D team to investigate the seroprevalence of Newcastle Disease and has been investigating the effects of endoparasitism on the immunological response to Newcastle Disease vaccination in local chickens. Rob also gave a seminar on the application of epidemiology to poultry research and on the estimation of study sample sizes.

 

Token of appreciation to villagers from CH4D project

As a token of appreciation to the villagers who have been supporting the study, the CH4D project team purchased some school books which have been donated to eight schools in two of the project districts (four schools per district) where the projects field work is carried out. It is hoped that this resource can in this way benefit the wider community. A selection of 50 science and language textbooks appropriate for Grades 7 to 8 were given to each school. A small presentation was made to the school directors; education office heads of the districts and district administrators in Horro at an informal barbecue held in Shambu district. Several of the field team members also had an opportunity to tour round the local schools during the course of the visit.