Impacts of small hill dams on agricultural development of hilly land in the Jendouba region of northwestern Tunisia

We examine the shifting farming system around the small hill dams in northwestern Tunisia. A socio-economic questionnaire was given to a sample of farmers using water from eight representative small hill dams. Cluster analysis was used to establish farmer groups before and after creation of the reservoirs. Before the creation of hill dams, farmers were grouped into two clusters. Afterwards, three new farming systems emerged. The main differences between these groups are farm area, cropping system, irrigation practice, livestock type and number, and income. Following construction of the small hill dams farmers increased the extent of fruit tree cultivation, introduced irrigation practices, and augmented livestock herd size and production. Farmer income increased with the availability of water in the hill dam reservoirs.Small hydraulic structures Steep land Assessment Irrigation Farming system Cluster analysis

High Frequency of Enterocytozoon bieneusi Genotype WL12 Occurrence among Immunocompromised Patients with Intestinal Microsporidiosis

International audienceMicrosporidiosis is an emerging opportunistic infection causing severe digestive disorders in immunocompromised patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of intestinal microsporidia carriage among immunocompromised patients hospitalized at a major hospital complex in the Tunis capital area, Tunisia (North Africa), and perform molecular epidemiology and population structure analyses of Enterocytozoon bieneusi, which is an emerging fungal pathogen. We screened 250 stool samples for the presence of intestinal microsporidia from 171 patients, including 81 organ transplant recipients, 73 Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-positive patients, and 17 patients with unspecified immunodeficiency. Using a nested PCR-based diagnostic approach for the detection of E. bieneusi and Encephalitozoon spp., we identified 18 microsporidia-positive patients out of 171 (10.5%), among which 17 were infected with E. bieneusi. Microsporidia-positive cases displayed chronic diarrhea (17 out of 18), which was associated more with HIV rather than with immunosuppression other than HIV (12 out of 73 versus 6 out of 98, respectively, p = 0.02) and correlated with extended hospital stays compared to microsporidia-negative cases (60 versus 19 days on average, respectively; p = 0.001). Strikingly, internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-based genotyping of E. bieneusi strains revealed high-frequency occurrence of ITS sequences that were identical (n = 10) or similar (with one single polymorphic site, n = 3) to rare genotype WL12. Minimum-spanning tree analyses segregated the 17 E. bieneusi infection cases into four distinct genotypic clusters and confirmed the high prevalence of genotype WL12 in our patient population. Phylogenetic analyses allowed the mapping of all 17 E. bieneusi strains to zoonotic group 1 (subgroups 1a and 1b/1c), indicating loose host specificity and raising public health concern. Our study suggests a probable common source of E. bieneusi genotype WL12 transmission and prompts the implementation of a wider epidemiological investigation