Factors contributing to animal health risks: Implication for smallholder pig production in Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are about four million households producing pigs of which more than half are producing at small scale, i.e., about one to two pigs per production cycle. One of the most critical constraints to pig production, especially for small scale, is the presence of animal disease. Many types of diseases have been reported by smallholder pig producers in Hung Yen such as diarrhea, pneumonia, fever, blue ear, head edema and pasteurellosis. The percentage of sick pigs is highest among piglets (27 percent), as compared with growing pigs and fatteners (five percent each). Diseases could lead to death of pigs, resulting in economic losses to the pig producers. Estimates of the cost of mortality in pig production in Hung Yen were about 3.3 million VND per household, accounting for about 13.6 percent of total income from pig production. Results of this study suggest that there are some practices that contribute to mitigating disease risk and those practices can be easily applied at small scale of pig production. These practices are related to applying a suitable production scale, isolating different age classes of pigs, designing pig houses and using specialized livestock farming tools and sanitation. The value of losses avoided from the above practices is estimated at 320.3 USD per household per year

Socio-Cultural Factors Challenging Development Interventions in Cattle Production in the Remote Areas of Vietnam

The northwest highlands of Vietnam are characterized by high altitude, low infrastructure, and low population densities composed of a wide diversity of different ethnic groups. Their socio-cultural characteristics strongly influence their lifestyle and production systems, including agricultural activities. The majority of these people have suffered from slow economic development, with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is a real need for plausible interventions where behavioral changes of smallholders throughout local value chains would be a critical foundation. Our project implemented in this context of development in the Northwest highlands of Vietnam aims to understand the role of socio-cultural factors in cattle production systems in order to propose and examine feasible technical and marketing interventions to improve local grazing-based cattle production. Data on farmers and other actors (collectors, slaughterhouses, retailers and consumers) in local cattle value chains of two selected provinces (Son La and Dien Bien) were collected at the beginning of the project via a baseline survey. In addition, different group discussions with farmers were conducted until the end of the project to monitor the project’s progress and changes created through its interventions. We found that such behavioral changes cannot be motivated by development interventions per se without integrating an understanding of socio-cultural factors (i.e. ethnicity, geographical location and grazing-practices)

Characterizing pig value chains in Vietnam: descriptive analysis from survey data

The traditional pig sector plays a significant role in Vietnam’s economy from production, especially for farmers in rural areas, to consumption (more than 90% of pork consumed is supplied by conventional wet markets). At the same time, the traditional pig sector is under threat from animal health and food safety risks that impact both its profitability and future viability. However, little research exists on defining key intervention points that could manage risks in a propoor, cost-effective manner. Our study highlighted and reviewed the contrast between pig value chains in two provinces (Hung Yen and Nghe An) that represent different levels of economic development in the county. Based on semi-structured questionnaires, 400 pig producing farmers and 400 pork consumers were surveyed in both provinces during July and August 2013, paying particular attention to typologies of production and consumption in rural, semi-urban, and urban zones. We also obtained information on 200 other intermediary value chain actors through semi-structured and in-depth interviews. Preliminary descriptive analysis revealed the main characteristics of various actors in the sampled value chains, including (vet and feed) input suppliers, producers, traders, slaughterhouses (or abattoirs), processors, retailers, and consumers. In particular, we found that actors in Hung Yen are more likely to be active and commercialised in pig value chains than those in Nghe An. At the same time, Nghe An is exposed to operate its chains more ‘self-sufficiently’, with ownproduced inputs, particularly feeds, and has more state-owned farms involved in breed supply. In both study sites, middlemen often perform multiple functions and are generally the most powerful actors in the surveyed chains since they have better access to information and dominate value-added activities. This may imply a potential control point for risk management in response to diseases transmitted in short-term as well as (pro-poor) profit distribution in longerterm. Moreover, the behaviours of actors in these two provinces are dissimilar in terms of production and consumption practices as a result of differences in production scale, knowledge, attitude and habits. Information from this study will provide more insightful understanding of these existing value chains and serve as the base for further economic and risk analysis

Flexible interactive retrieval SysTem 3.0 for visual lifelog exploration at LSC 2022

Building a retrieval system with lifelogging data is more complicated than with ordinary data due to the redundancies, blurriness, massive amount of data, various sources of information accompanying lifelogging data, and especially the ad-hoc nature of queries. The Lifelog Search Challenge (LSC) is a benchmarking challenge that encourages researchers and developers to push the boundaries in lifelog retrieval. For LSC'22, we develop FIRST 3.0, a novel and flexible system that leverages expressive cross-domain embeddings to enhance the searching process. Our system aims to adaptively capture the semantics of an image at different levels of detail. We also propose to augment our system with an external search engine to help our system with initial visual examples for unfamiliar concepts. Finally, we organize image data in hierarchical clusters based on their visual similarity and location to assist users in data exploration. Experiments show that our system is both fast and effective in handling various retrieval scenarios

Safety and efficacy of fluoxetine on functional outcome after acute stroke (AFFINITY): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Trials of fluoxetine for recovery after stroke report conflicting results. The Assessment oF FluoxetINe In sTroke recoverY (AFFINITY) trial aimed to show if daily oral fluoxetine for 6 months after stroke improves functional outcome in an ethnically diverse population. Methods AFFINITY was a randomised, parallel-group, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial done in 43 hospital stroke units in Australia (n=29), New Zealand (four), and Vietnam (ten). Eligible patients were adults (aged ≥18 years) with a clinical diagnosis of acute stroke in the previous 2–15 days, brain imaging consistent with ischaemic or haemorrhagic stroke, and a persisting neurological deficit that produced a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 1 or more. Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 via a web-based system using a minimisation algorithm to once daily, oral fluoxetine 20 mg capsules or matching placebo for 6 months. Patients, carers, investigators, and outcome assessors were masked to the treatment allocation. The primary outcome was functional status, measured by the mRS, at 6 months. The primary analysis was an ordinal logistic regression of the mRS at 6 months, adjusted for minimisation variables. Primary and safety analyses were done according to the patient's treatment allocation. The trial is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12611000774921. Findings Between Jan 11, 2013, and June 30, 2019, 1280 patients were recruited in Australia (n=532), New Zealand (n=42), and Vietnam (n=706), of whom 642 were randomly assigned to fluoxetine and 638 were randomly assigned to placebo. Mean duration of trial treatment was 167 days (SD 48·1). At 6 months, mRS data were available in 624 (97%) patients in the fluoxetine group and 632 (99%) in the placebo group. The distribution of mRS categories was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (adjusted common odds ratio 0·94, 95% CI 0·76–1·15; p=0·53). Compared with patients in the placebo group, patients in the fluoxetine group had more falls (20 [3%] vs seven [1%]; p=0·018), bone fractures (19 [3%] vs six [1%]; p=0·014), and epileptic seizures (ten [2%] vs two [<1%]; p=0·038) at 6 months. Interpretation Oral fluoxetine 20 mg daily for 6 months after acute stroke did not improve functional outcome and increased the risk of falls, bone fractures, and epileptic seizures. These results do not support the use of fluoxetine to improve functional outcome after stroke

Pig production in Vietnam: How to meet emerging demand for food safety

This paper aims to present concerns of pork consumers recently from food safety point of view and investigate approaches that assist pig farmers to meet the requirement of safe pork product of consumers. Based on data from the survey in 2013 and 2014 conducted by ILRI and VNUA, various solutions are suggested. In the first place, safe pork value chains is suggested to be set up and upgraded basing on Lifsap project. This ideal is to link GAHP farmers, slaughters and retailers to provide safe pork to consumers. Next, the paper discusses approaches to mitigate pig diseases leading to a reduction in the use of drugs for pig production such as the application of VietGHAP guideline, designing and investing well infrastructure, cleaning pig houses and examined production tools

Factors contributing to disease risk in pig production in Hung Yen

In practice, many types of diseases happen in pig production in Hung Yen such as diarrhea, pneumonia, fever, blue ear, head edema and pasteurellosis, in which, the most widely and frequently observed disease is diarrhea and it often happens for piglet. Diseases may lead to a result of dead pigs. Cost of mortality is a kind of economic loss and it is estimated about 3.3 mil. VND/household/year and this loss accounts for about 13.6 percent of total income from pig production. In order to mitigate disease risk and mortality cost, it is necessary to investigate factors contributing to disease risk. Results of this paper indicate that driven factors contributing to disease risk are production scale, pig density, quality of veterinary services, contacting possibility between different groups and age classes, hygiene issue of pig house and waste treatment and sources of purchased piglets. In relation to solutions mitigating pig disease risk, local authorities should pay more attention on improving quality of veterinary services and it is necessary to have a master plan for pig industry development in region. In addition, pig farmers themselves should improve farming practices related to pig isolation and cleaning pig houses and should produce own piglets

Factors Contributing to Animal Health Risks: Implication for Smallholder Pig Production in Vietnam

In Vietnam, there are about four million households producing pigs of which more than half are producing at small scale, i.e., about one to two pigs per production cycle. One of the most critical constraints to pig production, especially for small scale, is the presence of animal disease. Many types of diseases have been reported by smallholder pig producers in Hung Yen such as diarrhea, pneumonia, fever, blue ear, head edema and pasteurellosis. The percentage of sick pigs is highest among piglets (27 percent), as compared with growing pigs and fatteners (five percent each). Diseases could lead to death of pigs, resulting in economic losses to the pig producers. Estimates of the cost of mortality in pig production in Hung Yen were about 3.3 million VND per household, accounting for about 13.6 percent of total income from pig production. Results of this study suggest that there are some practices that contribute to mitigating disease risk and those practices can be easily applied at small scale of pig production. These practices are related to applying a suitable production scale, isolating different age classes of pigs, designing pig houses and using specialized livestock farming tools and sanitation. The value of losses avoided from the above practices is estimated at 320.3 USD per household per year