Risk-based pedigree-analysis for regulation of prophylactic aquaculture health products and improved smallholder health management in Bangladesh

Rapidly growing demand for seafood products for domestic and export markets is driving intensification of aquaculture sectors still dominated by small-holders in Bangladesh. Ensuring effective health management has become the single most important challenge for sustainable intensification of the smallholder sector just increasing restrictions on use antibiotic and other therapeutants are being imposed. Farmers are increasingly dependent on a proliferating range of poorly regulated prophylactic health products including probiotics (beneficial bacteria), often of uncertain provenance & efficacy.

Although probiotics are often viewed as a response to the problem of 'imprudent' antibiotic use in aquaculture, screening of probiotics in a previous BBSRC and DFID funded project (IMAQulate Project, Ref: BB/N005082/1) revealed serious problems with a number of commercial products including; ineffective active ingredient concentrations, contamination with bacteria pathogenic to humans, fraudulent inclusion of antibiotics, presence of antimicrobial resistance genes. In addition many products lack of credibility regarding their mode of action & efficacy claims. Findings also point to a lack of effective sampling approaches as part of emergent regulatory efforts resulting in lack of detection of some problem-products in screening efforts whilst the economic burden of poor quality assurance and unjustified claims is likely to fall most heavily on small-holders.

In response the project has developed a PHP risk analysis tool helping users to identify 'high-risk' products based on label-information and other secondary indicators. Focusing on emergent market for PHPs in pangasius and shrimp sectors, this project (PEDIGREE) aims to increase awareness of these issues to support improved regulation for safety and quality assurance in Bangladesh and more effective small-holder health management.
To do this the project will feed into a national health management regulatory strategy being developed by the Department of Fisheries as well as providing probiotic quality and management advice to farmers through a farmer advisory hotline established and operated by project NGO partner Practical Action Bangladesh.

Lead by the University of Stirling (UK), other partners in Bangladesh include the Bangladesh Aquaculture Product Companies Association (BAPCA), the WorldFish Center Bangladesh (WFC) and Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU).

Led by the University of Stirling (UoS), this project will communicate and exploit findings of the BBSRC/DFID, Newton Funded project "Evaluating Costs and Benefits of Prophylactic Health Products (PHPs) and Novel Alternatives on Smallholder Aquaculture Farmers in Asia and Africa (IMAQulate: BB/N005082/1)", with users in Bangladesh. 'User-partners' are a producer organisation, the Bangladesh Aqua Product Companies Association (BAPCA) that represents 65 members nationwide and the NGO, Practical Action Bangladesh (PAB). Intensifying smallholder farmers generating greatest demand for PHPs in two aquaculture sectors; shrimp (penaeiid and macrobrachium spp.) and finfish (pangasius catfish and tilapia) are the primary target beneficiary group.

A newly developed predictive tool along with other value-chain survey findings from the IMAQulate project will be exploited to increase capacity farmers to identify reputable probiotics and to use them prudently and effectively, thus reducing overall antibiotic use, with knock-on reductions in antibiotic resistance gene prevalence and benefits for animal and human health. The project will also to exploit the same tool to introduce a risk-based sampling approach to safety and quality assurance as part of an regulatory strategy being developed as part of a national health management strategy being developed by the Department of Fisheries .
To acheive this goal the project will work directly with the named industry and NGO partners on two sets of concurrent and integrated activities. UoS staff will work with partners to use the tool to identify and sample 'low' and 'high-risk' PHPs for screening. Quality assurance professionals nominated by BAPCA will visit the UoS to be trained and conduct the laboraty screening based best-practices approaches consistent with resource limitations in Bangladesh. In a parallel thrust the project will work directly with NGO Practical Action (PAB) to provide small-holder farmers with access to impartial, independent advice on product quality, risks and efficacy advice through an established telephone farmer hotline advisory service which provided advice to over 4,000 of the projects target small-holder aquaculture beneficiaries last year. Health management advice and the risk tool will be further attuned to farmer needs through combined assessment of health management queries in a PAB hotline database and IMAQulate survey outputs. BAPCA will assume responsibility for annual revision of a product inventory at the heart of the risk-tool post-project and will also exploit the tool as their business to consumer (B2C) corporate responsibility platform. BAPCA and its membership are thus committed to supporting this regulatory effort from a position of enlightened self-interest and social licence to operate. Membership may also be incorporated as a (low) risk-indicator in the PEDIGREE tool, contingent on screening outcomes. PEDIGREE will also contribute to capacity building of the BAPCA 'quality assurance exchangees in relevant laboratory analytical skills.

Co-Is from the WorldFish Centre Bangladesh (WFC) and the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) will also support the projects regulatory objectives through their existing roles in on-going strategic policy initiatives. Specifically BAPCA and the DoF are charged with preparing a national inventory of AMPs as a precursor to a registration and quality assurance scheme (covering traceability, labelling and contamination issues), a component of the National Heath Strategy. PEDIGREE will contribute outcomes of IMAQulate's on-going national PHP inventory effort to this process.