By George Kebaso @Morarak
The dozen and half indegenous chicken in Joyce Kwamboka’s homestead supplements her family’s livelihood. The few eggs she collects from the chicken pays for most of her domestic needs.And sometimes towards the end of the year – when demand for chicken rises with the festive season – proceeds from sale of mature chicken gives her enough to do shopping for her two daughters in university, a son in high school and one child in primary school. At the start of the year, all the four children have various personal needs as they proceed to their respective learning institutions. But when news of the outbreak of Avian Influenza (H5N8) in neighbouring Uganda reached her with possibility of the disease virus crossing over to Kenya, she was scared and had to sell all of them. The scare according to Kwamboka was real that she had to sell at a throw-away price. “I did not think twice. The thought of losing all my chicken was almost choking me. Like a few farmers here, I had to sell my chicken at half the price,” Kwamboka told Health Business Magazine. However, she is optimistic the government is dealing with the situation in order for her to start afresh. Millicent Mathenge, the director of Millmatt Poultry Farm Limited in Kiambu is even more scared. With 57, 000 layers that give her between 1000 to 1500 trays of eggs a day, she does not imagine the magnitude of the losses. “This is roughly Sh420,000 gone down the drain at a lower side of Sh280 per tray,” she said. This, she said could mean laying off up to 28 farm hands besides other value chain losses. A slight egg shortage in the country pushes the price of a tray up to Sh330. At a national scale, an estimated 45 million indigenous chicken according to Kenya Poultry Breeders Association (KPBA) are exposed to the highly pathogenic bird flu. Veterinary experts say the disease is deadly and capable of causing over 80 per cent of a country’s chicken population. Further, the association estimates that, a turnover of 52 million broilers and 7 million exotic layers annually would be exposed to infections and by extension death. This could mean loss of incomes valued at billions of shillings to the country’s poultry sector. The poultry value chain players fear that, if the disease invades chicken in the country, it would cause massive losses of up to billions of shillings. On the memory lane, experts say that a bird flu scare back in September 2005, which by then, had not affected any country in Africa, was estimated to have cost independent farmers and new a few businesses in the tune of Sh2.3 billion. “A confirmed outbreak in Kenya would therefore be disastrous. Besides the high scale of economic losses that could be experienced, it also scares that the zoonotic nature of the H5N8 pathogens, transmitted to human beings is capable of causing respiratory problems. An acute strain can cause death,” said Akefema manager Dr Humphrey Mbugua told Health Business Magazine. Outbreaks of different types of the H5N8 in poultry farms, markets and family holdings have previously been reported in African countries like, Egypt, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Cote D’ivoire and Ghana. The current Ugandan virus type H5N8 has also been identified in Nigeria and Tunisia this year. Poultry farming in Kenya is a major activity for both subsistence, livelihoods and commercial purposes. It is handled by about 65 per cent of the households. According to Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in 2009 the country’s chicken population stood at 32 million. Averagely, if one chicken costs Sh500 and the disease wiped this population nationally, it could mean that in 2009, Kenya could have lost up to Sh16 billion. “Any bird flu outbreak within Kenya would lead to massive poultry deaths, due to the poultry population having no natural immunity against the disease and neither having ever been vaccinated for its prevention,” Mbugua adds. When the government announced recently it plans to lift a ban on importation of chicken and eggs from Uganda, poultry stakeholders in Kenya protested. Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Cabinet Secretary, Willy Bett assured Kenyans – after leading a delegation to Uganda which met President Yoweri Museveni on February 4, 2017 – that, the government had taken steps to secure Kenya from incursion by the Ugandan Avian Influenza disease, which could likely be lifted soon if ongoing assessments indicate there is no threat. But Kenya Poultry Farmers Association (KEPOFA), KPBA and Akefema said the move could affect the whole value chain. First, because it is not consultative with stakeholders and secondly, if it does not resonate with the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) recommendations of a six-month quarantine period. “Drastically reduced poultry would also disrupt the businesses and livelihoods of all other stakeholders including feed suppliers, poultry farmers, charcoal dealers, jua kali artisans – who are involved in fabrication of poultry equipments. The lifting of the ban would also flood Kenya with products that are already enough locally,” said Kepofa chairperson, Wairimu Kariuki. She said the European outbreak of H5N8 in 17 countries since October 2016, has had a devastating effect on their poultry and associated industries. The department of veterinary in Kenya headed by Dr. Kisa Juma has cautioned farmers and other poultry keepers in the country to protect their chicken. He said the highly pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) or fowl plague, even if it has not yet occurred in Kenya, it may come into the country through infected migratory wild birds or directly by infected poultry and its products. “Vigilance and surveillance at the borders, and within Kenya of wild birds will prevent its entry into Kenya. Humans may get infected. The public therefore must be urgently be made aware of the disease. We are asking those who keep chicken at their homesteads, to heighten security of their birds,” Juma said. In January 2, Uganda Wildlife Centre reported about information, originally got from fishermen that wild birds around Lutembe beach, at the shores of lake Victoria, near Entebbe, were dying in large numbers, with up to 60 per cent mortality. These wild birds were identified as white-winged black terns and 7 were sampled. And 11 days later, five domestic ducks and one chicken were found dead in Masaka District. The following day, the cause of death was confirmed as Avian Influenza virus from faecal and organ materials. On January 15 2017, OIE received information of the Avian Influenza results, the same (H5N8) was confirmed at the World Reference Laboratory for influenza typing in Italy, a strain similar to the one which has been causing disease in Europe since October 2016. On January 18, 2017, the State Department of Veterinary in Kenya acted swiftly and summoned the multi- sectoral National Avian Influenza Task Force to be briefed on the issue, constitute working committees on infection prevention and control; laboratory surveillance, communication and resource mobilisation. A decision was made immediately to ban imports of poultry and its products from Uganda. Currently, Kenya and Ugandan governments have set up a joint team of experts in poultry to carry out a risk assessment of the situation in Uganda so as to come up with a conclusive report that will be used to get a lasting solution to bird flu disease In Uganda, the team has visited affected areas which include Bukakata Landing Site, Lutembe, some of the sites for migratory birds that are disease carriers and some commercial farms like Yokuku in Semuto. At the commercial farms, the Kenyan team wanted to know the distance of the commercial farms from the affected places and the biosecurity measures in place to prevent the birds from catching the diseases. Ugandan officials have said the ban is already affecting not only the commercial farmers but the small holder farm too because the big farmers are now scrambling for the small domestic market that was being enjoyed by the smaller farms. Already the price of a tray of eggs at farm level has dropped by Sh500 and this is likely to continue if the ban continues.
