Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Poultry Farmers on Antimicrobial Use, Resistance and Farm Hygiene Management in Bangladesh

The poultry farming is considered one of the hotspots for the use of antimicrobials. The knowledge, attitude and practices of poultry farmers are closely associated with the prudent use of antimicrobials in poultry farm practices. A cross sectional study was conducted among seventy-four commercial poultry farms using a pretested structured questionnaire survey to assess knowledge, attitude and practices of the poultry farmers regarding antimicrobial use, resistance and farm hygiene management. According to demographics, more farmers were secondary holders (29.72%), followed by higher secondary (22.97%) and illiterate (12.16%) with least number (13.51%) had training on antibiotics but no one had training on AMR. Farmers had sufficient knowledge about antibiotics (86.49%) but inadequate knowledge about antimicrobials (14.86%), AMR (51.35%), and animal and fish feed act (20.27%). The majority of farmers strongly agreed that AMR had a negative impact on production (40.54%), human health (36.49%), environment (33.78%) and economy (52.7%). Farm hygiene management revealed that most of them (90.54%) thrown the expired and leftover antibiotics in the open environments. Furthermore, the farm litter was managed diversely with 39.19% kept in open pit; 33.78% used in fish farm and 5.41% used for agricultural land. It was observed that the dead birds were disposed in a variety of ways, buried into ground (58.10%), thrown into field (9.45%), thrown into bush (6.75%), thrown into garbage (9.45%) and thrown in the water (13.51%). A significant higher association was found between the level of education and knowledge; level of education with farm practices such as choice of antibiotics, determining doses and duration of antibiotics, disposal of farm wastages, disposal of dead birds, farm biosecurity and vaccination coverage (p<0.05). Continuous education, hands-on training, awareness, and motivation of farmers along with good biosecurity, mass vaccination and proper hygienic measures can minimize the uses of antimicrobials in farm operations.