Poultry, Fisheries & Wildlife Sciences
Open Access

Abstract

Risk Factors Associated with Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza in the Household Sector in Egypt

Waleed E Abou El-Amaiem, Lobna M Abd El-Kareem and Sanaa A Awad

Influenza epidemics are a major health concern worldwide. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses in Egypt have been subjected to rapid genetic and antigenic changes since the first outbreak in February 2006 and have been endemic in poultry in Egypt since 2008. The aim of this study was to assess the most prominent risk factors affecting highly pathogenic avian influenza in the household sector in Egypt. For this purpose 80 villages were selected randomly from different Egyptian districts according to the presence of rumors, high density and high morbidity and mortality rate in different poultry species to collect samples for viral detection for this study. In addition, a questionnaire about the hypothesized risk factors was constructed.
The final multivariate logistic regression model showed, a significant association between source of chicken (p<0.05), season (p<0.05), presence of nursery farms (p<0.05), husbandry system (p<0.05), carrying out individual interview for data collection (p<0.05) and respond ability of governmental organizations in data collection (p<0.05).
According to our knowledge, this is the first paper to discuss the risk factors associated with highly pathogenic avian influenza in household sector in Egypt.