A Survey On The Utilization Of Antibiotics By Farmers And The Associated Factors In Luquan County,Yunnan Province

Objectives:Irrational use of veterinary antibiotics have led to drug resistance and unsafe food that cause serious harms for livestock, human being and environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate Luquan farmers' usage of veterinary antibiotics, and to analyze factors that affect farmers'use of veterinary antibiotics aiming at providing baseline data for the interventions in next phase and finally to promote the rational usage of veterinary antibiotics.Methods:Luquan County in Yunnan Province was selected as the study site. We conducted a questionnaire survey targeted at livestock fanners in 8 administrative villages of 4 townships in Luquan in August 2014 and April 2015 respectively. The survey contents cover the basic demographic information, the animal farming situation, and the availability and usage of veterinary antibiotics of the farmers. In total,404 farmers were surveyed.Results:Of the surveyed fanners, the female farmers (53.2%) outnumbered the male (46.8%); majority of the farmers (77.2%) are 40 years old and above; 59.9% of farmers' education level is primary school and below; 11.4% of the farmers are ethnic minority people; only 25.5% of the farmers reported that they had participated in some animal farming training. scale farmers and backyard farmers accounted for 21.3% and 78.7% respectively.83.7% of farmers reported that they have the experience of "self-purchasing" veterinary antibiotics. Scale farmers and farmers who use "hygienic sty" are more likely to self-purchase veterinary antibiotics (x2=7.003, P<0.01). Around 20% of the farmers had the experience of purchasing antibiotics from a human pharmacy" (16.9%) or a village clinic (1.9%).In terms of the varieties of veterinary antibiotics used,85.9%of the farmers reported that they used 0-4 types and 14.1%farmers reported that they used 5-9 types. Scale farmers tend to use more kinds of antibiotics than backyard farmers (X2=2O.180, P<0.001); fanners who have more knowledge on antibiotics used more kinds of antibiotics than farmers who are less knowledgeable about antibiotics (x2=8.567, P<0.01); Farmers whose livestock suffered from disease and farmers whose livestock suffered more types of diseases in the past use more kinds of antibiotics (x2==15.069, P<0.001; x2=29.015, P<0.001); farmers who have even used vaccine to their livestock and farmers who have used more vaccines to their livestock use more kinds of antibiotics than those who did not use or use fewer vaccines (x2=14.193, P<0.001; X2=28.057, P<0.001)40.3%of the farmers reported that they "often" use antibiotics,50.5%of the farmers reported that they "occasional" use antibiotics and only 7.9%of the farmers reported that they did not use antibiotics. Farmers who received livestock farming training, had sick livestock and used animal vaccine are more likely to report "often" use antibiotics while farmers who reported that they use lime to disinfect the pig sty use antibiotics less frequent (Z=-2.264, P<0.05;Z=9.142, P<0.05;Z=-4.483, P<0.001;Z=-2.182, P<0.05). There is a disconnection between farmers'antibiotic knowledge level and their behavior.Multivariate logistic analysis revealed that backyard farmers tend to self-purchase antibiotics less; backyard farmers and farmers whose livestock had fewer diseases tend to use smaller varieties of antibiotics. Conclusion:Livestock farmers in Luquan County are mainly people aged 40 and above and they received limited school education and little animal farming training. However, they have easy access to veterinary antibiotics without prescription. More scale farmers participated in animal farming training, however, they are also more likely to "self-purchase" veterinary antibiotics than backyard farmers and they also tend to use more kinds veterinary antibiotics than backyard farmers. Some of the farmers use human antibiotics to treat sick animals. We suggest that the following measures should be taken that including strengthening veterinary antibiotics supervision, conducting training and health promotion, improving farms'sanitation and hygiene as well as researching and developing alternatives of veterinary antibiotics so as to promote the rational use of antibiotics in livestock farming.