Zambia Agribusiness Society

Infectious fowl coryza is an acute respiratory worldwide chicken disease. Which is also referred to as a cold or roup. It is caused by the bacterium Haemophilus paragallinarum. This disease primarily affects chickens, but quail and pheasants may also be affected. Ways of Transmission Chickens of all ages are susceptible, but susceptibility increases with age. The incubation period is 1 to 3 days, and the disease duration is usually 2 to 3 weeks. 1.     Direct bird-to-bird contact 2.     Consuming contaminated feed and/or water 3.     Breathing airborne bacteria. Infected flocks are a constant threat to uninfected flocks. Signs of Fowl Coryza Signs of coryza include the following: 1.     Swelling around the face 2.     Foul-smelling 3.     Thick and sticky discharge from the nostrils and eyes 4.     Laboured breathing 5.     The eyelids of an infected bird can become irritated and might stick together. 6.     Diarrhoea may occur. 7.     Growing birds may become stunted. 8.     Infection

Pig rearing remains a lucrative business, but it is often disrupted by diseases. One of the diseases that attack pigs is the African swine fever (ASF) . The disease is characterised by loss of appetite; the skin under the ears, snout, legs and abdomen becomes dark blue, and the animals vomit and cough. The pigs may further bleed from the nose and rectum, have difficulties in breathing and they will diarrhoea. In short, African swine fever is the most deadly pig disease. The viral disease is highly contagious and affects domesticated and wild pigs and warthogs. It is transmitted mainly through direct contact with already infected pigs, their body fluids or their droppings, indirectly by ingestion of infected feedstuff especially garbage and by ticks that are vectors of the causing virus. Sadly, African swine fever has no treatment and can wipe out an entire pig farm. No vaccines have been developed but several biosecurity measures can be practised to minimise its spread. Watch

  The main purpose of all vaccines and consequently vaccination is to administer an optimum and safe amount of antigen to elicit immune response in the bird. Vaccination does not give guarantee that birds are protected. There are a number of factors which may furnish the success of a vaccine. It is a worth remembering that antigens or vaccine or vaccination itself does not produce immunity rather it is the bird’s immune system in general and immune cells in particular that provoke the immune response and present the antigen to T lymphocytes and by macrophages and from there it is expressed to b lymphocyte where the immune response initiated in items of antibodies. These antibodies are identical to the antigen of vaccine. The successful vaccination comes up in terms of higher and stronger immunity. On most of the occasions we get proper protection with vaccination but immunity breakdown is usually not known. The current topic highlighted the factors which will come up in term of