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Review
14.
Epidemiological intelligence for grazing management
in strategic control of parasitic gastroenteritis in
small ruminants in India – A review -
Sadaf Bukhari, Prabir Kumar Sanyal
Vet World. 2011; 4(2): 92-96
doi:
10.5455/vetworld.2011.92-96
Abstract
Because of the environmental and consumer concerns
arising out of exponential growth in human
population the world over, a term Sustainable
Development has become an integral international
concept, which is defined as one which meets the
needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own
needs. Ruminant animals appear sustainable as they
do not compete with man for food, play a crucial
role in the conversion of low quality plant material
and crop residues to high quality human food as well
as return valuable plant nutrients to the soil.
Parasite control in ruminant livestock is a
first-order input in any sustainable animal
production system. As sustainable development is a
compromise between reducing environmental
degradation and positive economic growth,
sustainable parasite control should aim towards less
intensive, lower input, lesser risk of parasite
induced losses with greater opportunities for
integration of all available control resources. The
compound scenario of rising anthelmintic resistance,
food and environmental security and apathy of the
pharmaceutical industry to go for the invention of
new anthelmintic compounds has triggered the need
for optimising the use of available anthelmintics
with integration of all other alternative means for
sustainable worm control. The “Sustainable Control
of Parasitic Gastroenteritis in Ruminants” is thus
encompasses a multidisciplinary approach involving
integration of chemotherapy, grazing management,
biological control, worm vaccines, genetic
resistance of hosts, mathematical model based
decision support and other strategies, if any. There
is no single requirement more crucial to the
rational and sustainable control of helminth
parasites in grazing animals than a comprehensive
knowledge of the epidemiology of the parasite as it
interacts with the host in a specific climatic,
management and production environment. In its
absence, anthelmintic treatment is either given
suppressively which provokes resistance or
therapeutically which risks clinical disease and
production losses. Sustainable parasite-control
programmes require knowledge of seasonal larval
availability, origin of larvae contributing to any
peaks and climatic requirements for worm egg
hatching, larval development and survival. Control
measures based on this knowledge include strategic
anthelmintic treatments and various forms of grazing
management. While these measures can reduce the
frequency of anthelmintic treatment required, their
effect on selection for drench resistance is more
problematical, unless they can be combined with
other forms of control to reduce our current
dependence on anthelmintics. The present article
deals with sustainable nematode parasite control in
small ruminants in India through grazing management
using epidemiological intelligence.
Key words :
Epidemiology, Grazing Management, Strategic control,
Parasitic gastroenteritis, Small ruminants.
