The proper management of the risk factors along with knowledge of the disease could help to reduce the incidence of IBD virus infection in commercial chickens in Bangladesh, reports Md. Harunur Rashid from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China.

With co-authors there and Bangladesh Agricultural University and Sylhet Agricultural University, a study was carried out into risk factors associated with infectious bursal disease in commercial chickens in Bangladesh. Their study was published in Preventive Veterinary Medicine.

They conducted a matched case–control study on 32 commercial farms affected with IBD and 96 IBD-unaffected farms taking flock size (<1000 versus >1,000 birds) and location of the farms (whether it is in rural or urban area) as matching variables.

Epidemiological data from case and control farms were collected through the use of a pre-tested questionnaire, and analysed by matched-pair analysis and multivariable conditional logistic regression.

In the multivariable analysis, the following variables were identified as risk factors for IBD in commercial chicken farms:

• 'receive visitors on the farm premises' (odds ratio [OR] = 4.49; 95 per cent confidence interval [CI] = 1.50–13.42; p=0.007)
• 'purchase live poultry from the open market' (OR = 7.59; 95 per cent CI = 2.69–21.45; p≤0.001)
• 'workers live outside the farms premises' (OR = 5.89; 95 per cent CI = 1.87–18.60; p=0.002) and
• 'access of vendor vehicles on the farm premises' (OR = 5.19; 95 per cent CI = 1.39–19.31; p=0.014)

Reference

^{Rashid M.H., C. Xue, M.T. Islam, M.R. Islam, Y. Cao. 2013. Risk factors associated with infectious bursal disease in commercial chickens in Bangladesh. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 111(1-2):181–185.}

August 2013