Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Related to African Swine  Fever Within Smallholder XXXX Production in Northern Uganda.

@entity1 @entity1707 @entity33842
UNASSIGNED: Uganda is a low-income country with the largest @entity1707 population in East Africa. @entity1707 keeping has a large potential, commercially and as a tool for poverty reduction, but @entity33842 ( @entity33842 ) is a major hurdle for development of the sector. The objective of this study was to evaluate knowledge, attitudes and practices related to @entity33842 in the smallholder @entity1707 production value chain in northern Uganda. The study included three separate series of participatory rural appraisals (PRA), comprising purposively selected farmers and other actors in the @entity1707 production value chain. In the PRAs, various participatory epidemiology tools were used. A total of 49 PRAs and 574 @entity1 , representing 64 different villages, were included. The results indicate that @entity1 were well aware of the clinical signs of @entity33842 , routes for disease spread and measures for disease control. However, awareness of the control measures did not guarantee their implementation. A majority of middlemen and butchers acknowledged having sold live @entity1707 , carcasses or pork they believed infected with @entity33842 . Outbreaks of @entity33842 had a strong negative impact on @entity1 ' socio-economic status with loss of revenue and reversal into more severe poverty. In conclusion, lack of knowledge is not what is driving the continuous circulation of @entity33842 virus in this setting. To control @entity33842 and reduce its impact, initiatives that stimulate changes in management are needed. Because the behaviour of all actors in the value chain is largely influenced by the deep rural poverty in the region, this needs to be combined with efforts to reduce rural poverty.
