Although HPAI was widespread in backyard, semi-commercial and commercial producers, the PS practitioners focussed on the backyard sector due to commercial sector distrust of public interventions and ease of entrance to backyard systems.
During the pilot phase it was found that HPAI was widespread in the backyard sector, in addition to affecting semi-commercial and commercial producers.
In Southeast Asia, this pathogen affects not only workers in close contact with pig/pork by-products but also the general population, probably because of the widespread presence of backyard types of pig production, open meat markets, and some special dishes prepared with raw meat or blood (3 ).
During a 1950's campaign to make China a leading steel producer, for example, part of the country's disastrous Great Leap Forward, the countryside was stripped of trees for fuel to fire backyard furnaces, causing widespread floods.
Backyard slaughtering is a widespread practice in the country; raw beef and goat meat are considered delicacies for most urban inhabitants and milk is often consumed raw in the rural community.
While "backyard" and semi-intensive production systems are still widespread, particularly in LMICs, industrial enterprises have been estimated to account for 74% of the world's poultry production, 40% of pork, and 68% of egg production (Bruinsma 2003).
"When you have such widespread damage and lots of local distribution lines running through backyards and fences, it makes it more difficult.
Widespread infection of highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5N1 was reported from backyard and commercial poultry in West Bengal (WB), an eastern state of India in early 2008.
Throughout southeast Asia, the widespread practice of rural families raising small flocks of chickens in their backyards brings wild birds into close contact with domestic poultry, which are in close contact with humans.
