Awareness, Knowledge and Practice of Pastoralists and Agro-Pastoralists towards Livestock Diseases Affecting Domestic Animals in Arusha, Manyara and Morogoro Regions, Tanzania

The study was carried out to assess pastoralists and agro-pastoralists awareness, knowledge and practice in various livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha Manyara and Morogoro regions in Tanzania. Closed- and open-ended questionnaires, focus group discussions and in-depth interview techniques were employed. Diseases, drought, lack of dipping tanks, insufficient of livestock experts and drugs are the main constraints in the livestock keeping community in the study area. Nineteen diseases have been reported to affect their animals at one time or the other. East Coast fever (ECF, 79.7%), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP, 60.8%) and Trypanosomosis (50%) have been reported by more than 50% of pastoralists that they affect their animals. ECF and CCPP seem to be the leading diseases with great impact to the pastoralists by causing high mortality rates. Rift valley fever (RVF) and anthrax have been reported by majority to be diseases which appear in form of outbreak in their area. Diseases reported here are said to be controlled primarily by treating with various drugs and Oxytetracycline being a common drug of choice for most unknown diseases. Other control methods include vaccination and deworming, dipping and spray of animals using acariceides. Livestock experts have been reported to play little role in controlling common livestock diseases as majority of livestock keepers tends to treat their animals. Veterinary experts seem to be important during outbreak of diseases or for unknown diseases killing many animals. Eating of dead and improperly cooked meat together with un-boiled milk was found to be common in the pastoral community. This could lead to the spread (if any) of zoonotic diseases easily. Livestock keeping community is aware of most of common diseases circulating in their area but the way they practice to control leads to failure of control of those diseases at individual and national level.  Devising a mechanism to educate them so that they know how to handle some common and reporting outbreak diseases such as use of trained community animal health workers (CAHWs) will help control livestock diseases in Tanzania. Keywords: community animal health workers, livelihood constraints, ECF, CCPP, CBPP, trypanosomosis, control measures

Evaluation of two lyophilized molecular assays to rapidly detect foot-and-mouth disease virus directly from clinical samples in field settings

Accurate, timely diagnosis is essential for the control, monitoring and eradication of foot‐and‐mouth disease (FMD). Clinical samples from suspect cases are normally tested at reference laboratories. However, transport of samples to these centralized facilities can be a lengthy process that can impose delays on critical decision making. These concerns have motivated work to evaluate simple‐to‐use technologies, including molecular‐based diagnostic platforms, that can be deployed closer to suspect cases of FMD. In this context, FMD virus (FMDV)‐specific reverse transcription loop‐mediated isothermal amplification (RT‐LAMP) and real‐time RT‐PCR (rRT‐PCR) assays, compatible with simple sample preparation methods and in situ visualization, have been developed which share equivalent analytical sensitivity with laboratory‐based rRT‐PCR. However, the lack of robust ‘ready‐to‐use kits’ that utilize stabilized reagents limits the deployment of these tests into field settings. To address this gap, this study describes the performance of lyophilized rRT‐PCR and RT‐LAMP assays to detect FMDV. Both of these assays are compatible with the use of fluorescence to monitor amplification in real‐time, and for the RT‐LAMP assays end point detection could also be achieved using molecular lateral flow devices. Lyophilization of reagents did not adversely affect the performance of the assays. Importantly, when these assays were deployed into challenging laboratory and field settings within East Africa they proved to be reliable in their ability to detect FMDV in a range of clinical samples from acutely infected as well as convalescent cattle. These data support the use of highly sensitive molecular assays into field settings for simple and rapid detection of FMDV

Awareness, knowledge and practice of pastoralists and agro- pastoralists towards livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha, Manyara and Morogoro Regions, Tanzania

Journal of Health, Medicine and Nursing, 2013, Vol.1The study was carried out to assess pastoralists and agro-pastoralists awareness, knowledge and practice in various livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha Manyara and Morogoro regions in Tanzania. Closed- and open-ended questionnaires, focus group discussions and in-depth interview techniques were employed. Diseases, drought, lack of dipping tanks, insufficient of livestock experts and drugs are the main constraints in the livestock keeping community in the study area. Nineteen diseases have been reported to affect their animals at one time or the other. East Coast fever (ECF, 79.7%), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP, 60.8%) and Trypanosomosis (50%) have been reported by more than 50% of pastoralists that they affect their animals. ECF and CCPP seem to be the leading diseases with great impact to the pastoralists by causing high mortality rates. Rift valley fever (RVF) and anthrax have been reported by majority to be diseases which appear in form of outbreak in their area. Diseases reported here are said to be controlled primarily by treating with various drugs and Oxytetracycline being a common drug of choice for most unknown diseases. Other control methods include vaccination and deworming, dipping and spray of animals using acariceides. Livestock experts have been reported to play little role in controlling common livestock diseases as majority of livestock keepers tends to treat their animals. Veterinary experts seem to be important during outbreak of diseases or for unknown diseases killing many animals. Eating of dead and improperly cooked meat together with un-boiled milk was found to be common in the pastoral community. This could lead to the spread (if any) of zoonotic diseases easily. Livestock keeping community is aware of most of common diseases circulating in their area but the way they practice to control leads to failure of control of those diseases at individual and national level. Devising a mechanism to educate them so that they know how to handle some common and reporting outbreak diseases such as use of trained community animal health workers (CAHWs) will help control livestock diseases in Tanzania

Awareness, knowledge and practice of pastoralists and agro- pastoralists towards livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha, Manyara and Morogoro Regions, Tanzania

Journal of Health, Medicine and Nursing, 2013, Vol.1The study was carried out to assess pastoralists and agro-pastoralists awareness, knowledge and practice in various livestock diseases affecting domestic animals in Arusha Manyara and Morogoro regions in Tanzania. Closed- and open-ended questionnaires, focus group discussions and in-depth interview techniques were employed. Diseases, drought, lack of dipping tanks, insufficient of livestock experts and drugs are the main constraints in the livestock keeping community in the study area. Nineteen diseases have been reported to affect their animals at one time or the other. East Coast fever (ECF, 79.7%), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP, 60.8%) and Trypanosomosis (50%) have been reported by more than 50% of pastoralists that they affect their animals. ECF and CCPP seem to be the leading diseases with great impact to the pastoralists by causing high mortality rates. Rift valley fever (RVF) and anthrax have been reported by majority to be diseases which appear in form of outbreak in their area. Diseases reported here are said to be controlled primarily by treating with various drugs and Oxytetracycline being a common drug of choice for most unknown diseases. Other control methods include vaccination and deworming, dipping and spray of animals using acariceides. Livestock experts have been reported to play little role in controlling common livestock diseases as majority of livestock keepers tends to treat their animals. Veterinary experts seem to be important during outbreak of diseases or for unknown diseases killing many animals. Eating of dead and improperly cooked meat together with un-boiled milk was found to be common in the pastoral community. This could lead to the spread (if any) of zoonotic diseases easily. Livestock keeping community is aware of most of common diseases circulating in their area but the way they practice to control leads to failure of control of those diseases at individual and national level. Devising a mechanism to educate them so that they know how to handle some common and reporting outbreak diseases such as use of trained community animal health workers (CAHWs) will help control livestock diseases in Tanzania

Molecular detection of tilapia lake virus (TiLV) genome in Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) from Lake Victoria

Tilapia lake virus (TiLV) is an emerging pathogen of Tilapiines associated with high mortalities of wild and farmed tilapia posing great threat to the fishery industry worldwide. The virus has been reported in Israel, Ecuador, Colombia, Thailand, Egypt, Taiwan, India and Malaysia. In this study, a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay was developed and used to detect TiLV genome in Nile tilapia from Lake Victoria. Nile tilapia samples were collected from the Tanzanian (108 fish) and Ugandan (83 fish) parts of Lake Victoria in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Samples were screened for TiLV by using RT-PCR and the PCR products were sequenced. The findings show that out of the 191 fish examined, 28 had PCR products showing the presence of TiLV genome. The TiLV nucleic acids were detected in the spleen (10.99%, N=191), head kidney (7.69%, N=65), heart (3.45%, N=29) and liver (0.71%, N=140) samples while no PCR amplification was detected in the brain by the developed RT-PCR method. Generally, the findings show that the lymphoid organs, mainly comprising of the head kidney and spleen had the highest number of samples with positive nucleic acids for TiLV followed by heart samples. On the contrary, the liver and brain that have previously been shown to be target organs during acute infection either did not have or had the lowest level of TiLV nucleic acids detected in the present study. All the 28 sequences retrieved had an average length of 768 bp. A blast analysis on NCBI showed that all sequences obtained were homologous to TiLV segment-2 sequences obtained from previous outbreaks in Israel and Thailand. To our knowledge, this is the first detection of TiLV subclinical infections in Nile tilapia in Lake Victoria, a none-outbreak area.Keywords: Lake Victoria, Nile tilapia, PCR, phylogenetic, surveillance, tilapia lake viru