Trematode infection in ruminants and diversity of snail hosts across three agro-ecological zones in Ethiopia.

The occurrence of trematodes among ruminants and their snail vectors is a major concern across various agro-ecological regions of Ethiopia. Trematodes pose significant threats to animals, causing considerable economic losses and impacting public health. In this study, we have investigated 784 ruminant fecal samples, and 520 abattoir samples, alongside the collection and identification of snail vectors from various agro-ecological regions. Fecal examinations revealed Fasciola, Paramphistomum and Schistosoma species infected 20.5% (95% CI: 17.6, 23.8), 11.7% (95% CI: 9.6, 14.2), and 6.3% (95% CI: 4.1, 9.1) of the animals, respectively. The overall prevalence of trematodes among ruminants was 28.8% (95% CI: 25.7, 32.1%), with 6.0% (95% CI: 4.3, 7.7) showing mixed infections. Fasciola was more prevalent in Asela (26%) compared to Batu (19%) and Hawassa (11.5%), while a higher proportion of animals in Batu were infected with Paramphistomum. Schistosoma eggs were detected only in Batu (12.5%), but not in other areas. Sheep and cattle exhibited higher infection rates with Fasciola, Paramphistoma, and Schistosoma compared to goats. Significant associations were observed between trematode infections and risk factors including agro-ecology, animal species, body condition score, and deworming practices. About 20.8% and 22.7% of the slaughtered animals harbored Fasciola and Paramphistomum flukes, respectively, with a higher prevalence in Asela and Hawassa abattoirs compared to Batu abattoir. Additionally, a total of 278 snails were collected from the study areas and identified as lymnae natalensis, lymnae trancatula, Biomphalaria pffiferi, Biomphlaria sudanica, and Bulinus globosus. In conclusion, the study highlights the widespread occurrence of trematode infections, emphasizing the need for feasible control measures to mitigate their economic and public health impacts.

Molecular and Serological Investigation of Infectious Bronchitis Virus in the East Shewa, Central Ethiopia.

Background: Infectious bronchitis (IB) is an economically important disease in poultry with worldwide distribution. The occurrence of IB has been reported both in commercial and backyard poultry in Ethiopia, although comprehensive information lacks available prevalence of the disease and the circulating serotypes. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2021 to June 2022 in seven commercial farms found in East Shewa, Central Ethiopia. Serological assay using indirect ELISA, virus isolation techniques in embryonated eggs, and molecular techniques such as one-step reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) targeting a 466 bp S1 gene were employed. Results: A total of 196 blood samples, 7 pools (35) of swab samples, and 5 pools of tracheal samples were investigated. The results of serological analysis revealed that 97.96% (192/196; 95% CI: 94.86-99.44) of the sera samples were found to be positive for antibodies against IBV. Out of the 7 pools of swab and 5 pools of tracheal tissue samples analyzed using RT-PCR 33.3% (4/12) of them gave positive results all from swab samples. The RT-PCR-positive samples were subjected to a nested PCR yielding 295bp and 154bp indicating the circulation of Mass and 793/B (4/91) strains of IBV, respectively. The 12 pools of samples inoculated into embryonated egg showed cytopathic changes such as congestion, bleeding, and deformation only after three passages. Conclusion: Two serotypes of IBV are circulating in Ethiopian chickens, and molecular identification of the Massachusetts serotype is the first report in Ethiopia. Further epidemiological investigation is needed in order to devise effective control measures.

Cattle exposure to bubaline herpesvirus (BuHV-1) in Southern Italy: A hidden threat for IBR eradication?

There is sufficient evidence that both bovine herpesvirus (BoHV-1) and bubaline herpesvirus (BuHV-1) can overcome the species barrier represented by their respective hosts, cattle and buffalo. Although several studies have focused on the impact of BoHV-1 on buffalo, little is known about the impact of BuHV-1 on cattle. In this work, we evaluated the seroprevalence of BuHV-1 in the cattle population in an area where intensive buffalo farming is highly developed (Campania region, Italy). BuHV-1 seroprevalence of cattle sampled in this study was estimated to be 21.4% using a specific commercial ELISA for the detection of antibodies against glycoprotein E of the virus. Risk factor assessment by univariate analysis revealed a correlation between housing type and higher prevalence. Similarly, cattle housed with buffalo and adult animals had a higher likelihood of being seropositive. BoHV-1 vaccination did not prove to be a protective factor against BuHV-1 exposure. The role of age, grazing, and co-living with buffalo in influencing BuHV-1 exposure was also confirmed by multivariate analysis. All BuHV-1 positive animals were also tested with cross-serum neutralization aimed at evaluating the specific antibody titers against BoHV-1 and BuHV-1. We, therefore, assessed the potential cross-reaction between BoHV-1 and BuHV-1, the co-infection rate, and the agreement of the assays used. This study described the presence of BuHV-1 in the cattle population of the Campania region (Italy) and indicated the requirement to take BuHV-1 into consideration for any measures and control and/or eradication plans to be applied against BoHV-1.

Approaches for disease prioritization and decision-making in animal health, 2000-2021: a structured scoping review.

This scoping review identifies and describes the methods used to prioritize diseases for resource allocation across disease control, surveillance, and research and the methods used generally in decision-making on animal health policy. Three electronic databases (Medline/PubMed, Embase, and CAB Abstracts) were searched for articles from 2000 to 2021. Searches identified 6, 395 articles after de-duplication, with an additional 64 articles added manually. A total of 6, 460 articles were imported to online document review management software (sysrev.com) for screening. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 532 articles passed the first screening, and after a second round of screening, 336 articles were recommended for full review. A total of 40 articles were removed after data extraction. Another 11 articles were added, having been obtained from cross-citations of already identified articles, providing a total of 307 articles to be considered in the scoping review. The results show that the main methods used for disease prioritization were based on economic analysis, multi-criteria evaluation, risk assessment, simple ranking, spatial risk mapping, and simulation modeling. Disease prioritization was performed to aid in decision-making related to various categories: (1) disease control, prevention, or eradication strategies, (2) general organizational strategy, (3) identification of high-risk areas or populations, (4) assessment of risk of disease introduction or occurrence, (5) disease surveillance, and (6) research priority setting. Of the articles included in data extraction, 50.5% had a national focus, 12.3% were local, 11.9% were regional, 6.5% were sub-national, and 3.9% were global. In 15.2% of the articles, the geographic focus was not specified. The scoping review revealed the lack of comprehensive, integrated, and mutually compatible approaches to disease prioritization and decision support tools for animal health. We recommend that future studies should focus on creating comprehensive and harmonized frameworks describing methods for disease prioritization and decision-making tools in animal health.

Assessment of Humoral Immune Response in Pre- and Post-Vaccinated Cattle Against Lumpy Skin Disease.

Introduction: Lumpy skin disease (LSD) is viral disease affecting cattle production and productivity in Ethiopia. As a prevention method, vaccinations have been used for a long period with a questionable output due to the existence of LSD outbreaks in vaccinated herds in different parts of Ethiopia. Methods: A longitudinal study was performed from October 2019 to April 2020 with the objective of assessing the humoral immune response of cattle with a serum neutralization test (SNT) from different management systems in central Ethiopia. In this study, theserum was collected from 113 cattle (extensive (60/113) and intensive (53/113) management systems) before and after vaccination. Results and Discussion: From collected sera, a limited number of cattle had seroconversion before vaccination (7.08%). On the other hand, it is obvious the seroconversion rises post vaccination. Accordingly, seroconversion starts to increase after a week (8.85% at 7 dpv) post-vaccination which proceeds to significantly increase at 30 days post vaccination (dpv) (41.65% (25/60)). Furthermore, the risk factor study before and after vaccination showed intensively managed cattle with significantly higher levels of antibody titer at 7 dpv (OR = 1.17; 95% CI = 0.22, 6.2; p = 0.016) and 30 dpv (OR = 3.67; 95% CI = 1.1, 12.29; p = 0.035) compared with that of extensively managed cattle. The other animal-related risk factor that showed a significant difference was breeds and a specific age group ([4½, 7] years) at 15 dpv (OR = 6.69; 95% CI = 2.02, 22.08; p = 0.002) and 30 dpv (OR = 4.24; 95% CI = 1.22, 14.71; p = 0.023); respectively. Conclusion: This study showed an overall lower antibody detection across the study, posing a question on the current LSD-vaccine efficacy. Therefore, a circulating strain of LSDV should be cross-checked with the vaccine strain and adaptations should be made from it.

Status of animal health biosecurity measures of dairy farms in urban and peri-urban areas of central Ethiopia.

Ethiopian dairy farming has many constraints including disease and lack of appropriate biosecurity measures. With this into consideration, a cross-sectional survey was carried out from November 2021 to April 2022 to determine the animal health biosecurity status of dairy farms and investigate the sociodemographic characteristics of livestock keepers on dairy farm management. A face-to-face questionnaire survey using an online application was used to collect data. The interview involved a total of 380 dairy farms located in six towns in central Ethiopia. The results showed that out of the surveyed farms, 97.6% missed footbaths at their gate points, 87.4% lacked isolation areas for either sick or newly introduced cattle, and 83.4% did not check the health status or quarantine newly introduced cattle. Furthermore, written formal record-keepings on animal health was uncommon, except for a few farms (7.9%). However, nearly all of the respondents (97.9%) gave medical treatments for sick cattle, and 57.1% of them vaccinated their herds regularly during the past 12 months before the survey. Hygienic aspects of the farms showed that 77.4% of the dairy farms appeared to clean the barn on a daily basis. However, 53.2% of respondents did not utilize personal protective equipment while cleaning their farms. A quarter of the dairy farmer (25.8%) avoided mixing their cattle with other herds, and 32.9% of them have implemented isolation of sick animals. In general, the animal health biosecurity assessment of the farms showed that most of the dairy farms (79.5%) earned unacceptable biosecurity levels (score of ≤ 50%), whereas the remaining 20.5% of dairy farms had received a score of >50% ("acceptable level"). The gender of dairy farmers (χ2 value = 7.61; p = 0.006), education level (χ2 value = 12.04; p = 0.007), dairy farm ownership (χ2 value = 41.6; p < 0.001), training on dairy farm management (χ2 value = 37.1; p < 0.001), towns (χ2 value = 31.69; p < 0.001), farm size (χ2 value = 7.7; p = 0.006), and herd size (χ2 value = 28.2; p < 0.001) showed a significant statistical association with biosecurity status. Finally, the study revealed that the level of biosecurity adoption of dairy farms in central Ethiopia is mostly unsatisfactory and calls for designing and implementing intervention measures toward improved animal health in dairy farms and further public health.

Prevalence of Bovine Rotavirus and Coronavirus in Neonatal Calves in Dairy Farms of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Preliminary Study.

BACKGROUND: Bovine rotavirus (BRV) and bovine coronavirus (BCoV) are the most common viral agents in neonatal calf diarrhea and result in serious economic consequences. The aim of the study was to determine the epidemiology of those viruses in randomly selected dairy farms of Addis Ababa. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2018 to April 2019 using a probability proportional to size (PPS) sampling technique. A total of 110 calves, less than 30 days of age, from 57 dairy herds were involved in the study. Associated factors of herds and calves were collected using semistructured interviews from farm owners and through physical observation of selected calves. Fecal samples were collected and analyzed using the sandwich ELISA method. Data generated from both semistructured interviews and laboratory investigation were analyzed using STATA_MP version 15. RESULTS: From the total 110 calves, 42 (38.18%) had diarrhea during the survey. The prevalence of bovine rotavirus and coronavirus was 3.64% (4/110) and 0.91% (1/110), respectively. Diarrhea, feeding colostrum timing, and sex of the neonatal calves had statistically significant association with bovine rotavirus infection (p < 0.05). All rotavirus-positive neonatal calves were identified in small scale dairy farms and in dairy farms that reported mortality though they lack statistically significant association. Only one coronavirus case was detected among the neonatal calves. The case was identified among small scale herds and in a herd with diarrheal cases. The sex of the coronavirus calf was female, diarrheic, and among 11-20 days old. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of rotavirus and coronavirus infections in neonatal calves was seldom in dairy farms of the study area. Rotavirus was more common than coronavirus, and further studies should be initiated on other (infectious and noninfectious) causes of neonatal calf diarrhea in the area.

Bovine trypanosomosis and Glossina distribution in selected areas of southern part of Rift Valley, Ethiopia.

Cross-sectional study was conducted in 9 selected districts of the southern part the Rift Valley, Ethiopia to estimate the dry period prevalence of bovine trypanosomosis as well as assessment of Glossina species. From a total of 1838 cattle examined for trypanosomosis by buffy coat technique 133 (7.2%) were found infected by trypanosome species. From the total positive animals 66.9 and 33.1% of them accounted to Trypanosoma congolense and Trypanosoma vivax, respectively. Significantly higher prevalence (19.4%., P<0.05) was recorded at Arba-Mnch district. Black colored cattle were the most highly affected (χ(2)=79.35, P<0.05) animals. The overall average PCV value for parasitaemic and aparasitaemic animals was 22.2 (95% CI=21.6-22.7) and 27% (95% CI=26.8-27.2), respectively. The fly caught per trap per day was 1.4 for Glossina species and 2.8 for other biting flies. Two species of Glossina identified namely Glossina pallidipes and Glossina fuscipes.

Major causes of organs and carcass condemnation in small ruminants slaughtered at Luna Export Abattoir, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia.

A retrospective study and active abattoir survey were conducted from December 2009 to April 2010 to determine the major causes of organs and carcasses condemnation and to estimate the associated direct financial loss at Luna Export Abattoir, Central Ethiopia. The active abattoir survey was conducted on 674 goats and 451 sheep (n=1125) and three years (2007, 2008 and 2009), retrospective data of 718,395 sheep and goats were also collected. From the retrospective data it was observed that liver was the most frequently condemned organ with condemnation rate of 32.4%, 46.7% and 70.5%, respectively. The major causes of condemnation for liver, lung, heart, kidneys and brain were cirrhosis (12.3%, 17.0% and 12.8%), pneumonia (6.6%, 11.6% and 12.5%), pericarditis (0.6%, 0.8% and 0.4%), nephritis (0.6%, 0.8% and 1.2%) and abscess (0.005%, 0.007% and 0.012%), respectively. Consequently, the overall direct financial loss from organs and carcass condemnation during the three years was estimated to be 22,993,591 Ethiopian birr (ETB) or 1,323,257 United State Dollar (USD). On the other hand, detailed post mortem inspection of liver, heart, kidneys, tongue, brain and carcass during the active abattoir survey revealed that higher losses were caused mainly due to cirrhosis (89.3 kg, 2998 ETB), pericarditis (5.4 kg, 308 ETB), faulty evisceration (8.4 kg, 472 ETB), calcification (8.4 kg, 469 ETB) and Coenurus cerebralis (4.3 kg, 243 ETB) and poor carcass condition (bonny carcass) (1390 kg, 78,500 ETB), respectively. Other causes of condemnation were also recorded and totally, about 110,361 ETB (6351 USD) was lost only from organs and carcasses condemnation during the active abattoir survey. In conclusion, this study identified the major causes of organs and carcass condemnation in Luna Export Abattoir and estimated the associated direct financial losses.