Zoonoses account for the most commonly reported emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, there is limited knowledge on how pastoral communities perceive zoonoses ...in relation to their livelihoods, culture and their wider ecology. This study was carried out to explore local knowledge and perceptions on zoonoses among pastoralists in Tanzania.
This study involved pastoralists in Ngorongoro district in northern Tanzania and Kibaha and Bagamoyo districts in eastern Tanzania. Qualitative methods of focus group discussions, participatory epidemiology and interviews were used. A total of 223 people were involved in the study. Among the pastoralists, there was no specific term in their local language that describes zoonosis. Pastoralists from northern Tanzania possessed a higher understanding on the existence of a number of zoonoses than their eastern districts' counterparts. Understanding of zoonoses could be categorized into two broad groups: a local syndromic framework, whereby specific symptoms of a particular illness in humans concurred with symptoms in animals, and the biomedical framework, where a case definition is supported by diagnostic tests. Some pastoralists understand the possibility of some infections that could cross over to humans from animals but harm from these are generally tolerated and are not considered as threats. A number of social and cultural practices aimed at maintaining specific cultural functions including social cohesion and rites of passage involve animal products, which present zoonotic risk.
These findings show how zoonoses are locally understood, and how epidemiology and biomedicine are shaping pastoralists perceptions to zoonoses. Evidence is needed to understand better the true burden and impact of zoonoses in these communities. More studies are needed that seek to clarify the common understanding of zoonoses that could be used to guide effective and locally relevant interventions. Such studies should consider in their approaches the pastoralists' wider social, cultural and economic set up.
African trypanosomosis is a disease of public health and economic importance that poses a major threat to the livelihoods of people living in the Maasai Steppe, where there is a significant ...interaction between people, livestock and wildlife. The vulnerability of the Maasai people to the disease is enhanced by the interaction of their cattle, which act as vehicles for trypanosomes, and tsetse flies close to wildlife in protected areas. This study was aimed at identification of trypanosome infections circulating in cattle and tsetse flies in order to understand their distribution and prevalence in livestock/wildlife interface areas in the Maasai Steppe.
A total of 1002 cattle and 886 tsetse flies were sampled from June 2015 to February 2016 in five villages and PCR was conducted to amplify the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS1) from trypanosomes. All Trypanosoma brucei-positive samples were further tested for the presence of the serum resistance-associated (SRA) gene found in human-infective trypanosomes using the SRA-LAMP technique.
The overall prevalence of trypanosome infections was 17.2% in cattle and 3.4% in tsetse flies. Using a nested PCR, prevalence and abundance of five trypanosome species, Trypanosoma vivax, T. brucei, T. simiae, T. theileri and T. congolense, were determined, which varied with season and location. The highest prevalence of the identified trypanosome species was recorded at the end of wet season with an exception of T. brucei which was high at the beginning of the wet season. No human-infective trypanosomes were detected in both cattle and tsetse fly DNA.
This study confirms that seasonality and location have a significant contribution to the prevalence of trypanosome species in both mammalian and vector hosts. These results are important for designing of community-wide vector and disease control interventions and planning of sustainable regimes for reduction of the burden of trypanosomosis in endemic pastoral areas, such as the Maasai Steppe in northern Tanzania.
Global, national, and local efforts to limit antimicrobial resistance (AMR) often stress the importance of raising awareness among users, sellers, and prescribers of antimicrobial drugs. This ...emphasis is founded upon two assumptions. First, awareness is limited, particularly concerning the links between antimicrobial use (AMU) and AMR. Second, "filling the awareness gaps" will motivate practises that will limit AMR. The first assumption is supported by knowledge, attitudes, and practises (KAP) surveys but these same studies provide mixed support for the second, with several studies finding that knowledge and attitudes are not correlated with related practises. This disconnect may arise as these surveys typically do not collect data on the cultural or historical contexts that pattern AMU. To explore how these contexts impact KAP related to AMU and AMR, we use a mixed-methods approach to examine veterinary practises among Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania. We combine a quantitative KAP survey (
= 195 households) with extensive qualitative data from focus group discussions (
= 55 participants). Results document limited awareness of AMR but also find that knowledge and attitudes are not correlated with practise. Thematic analysis of qualitative data pointed to three reasons behind this disconnect, including (1) Maasai self-perceptions as veterinary experts, (2) the central role of livestock in Maasai culture, and (3) the use of ethnoveterinary knowledge in animal health treatment. We argue that mixed-method approaches will be critical to developing the targeted awareness campaigns needed to limit the emergence and transmission of AMR.
Pastoralists and agro-pastoralists often occupy remote and hostile environments, which lack infrastructure and capacity in human and veterinary healthcare and disease surveillance systems. ...Participatory epidemiology (PE) and Participatory Disease Surveillance (PDS) are particularly useful in situations of resource scarcity, where conventional diagnostics and surveillance data of disease prevalence may be intermittent or limited. Livestock keepers, when participating in PE studies about health issues, commonly use their local language terms, which are often syndromic and descriptive in nature. Practitioners of PE recommend confirmation of their findings with triangulation including biomedical diagnostic techniques. However, the latter is not practiced in all studies, usually due to time, financial or logistical constraints. A cross sectional study was undertaken with the Maasai of Ngorongoro District, Tanzania. It aimed to identify the terms used to describe the infectious diseases of livestock and humans with the greatest perceived impact on livelihoods. Furthermore, it aimed to characterise the usefulness and limitations of relying on local terminology when conducting PE studies in which diagnoses were not confirmed. Semi-structured interviews were held with 23 small groups, totalling 117 community members within five villages across the district. In addition, informal discussions and field observations were conducted with village elders, district veterinary and medical officers, meat inspectors and livestock field officers. For human conditions including zoonoses, several biomedical terms are now part of the common language. Conversely, livestock conditions are described using local Maasai terms, usually associated with the signs observed by the livestock keeper. Several of these descriptive, syndromic terms are used inconsistently and showed temporal and spatial variations. This study highlights the complexity and ambiguity which may exist in local terminology when used in PE studies. It emphases the need for further analysis of such findings, including laboratory diagnosis where possible to improve specificity before incorporating them into PDS or disease control interventions.
Animal health service providers can play an important role in limiting drug resistance by promoting responsible and prudent use of veterinary drugs. Recognizing this potential, international agencies ...and governments have called for these providers to receive drug stewardship training, particularly providers in low- and middle-income countries where top-down regulations (e.g., national regulation of veterinary prescriptions) are largely unfeasible. The success of these stewardship trainings to promote responsible and prudent use will depend on many factors, including understanding how livestock-keeping communities currently interact with animal health service providers. Here, we use a mixed methods approach to identify and understand animal health seeking practices among Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania. Combining qualitative interviews (N = 31) and structured surveys (N = 195), we show the majority of Maasai respondents (≈80 %) do not frequently consult animal health service providers with most relying on advice from family and friends. Logistic regression models of health seeking practices find that increasing age, education, observance of treatment failure, and herd disease burdens are associated with greater odds of seeking out health services. Quantitative results were supported by data from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews that showed Maasai view animal health service providers as measures of last resort, whose input is largely sought after self-treatment with veterinary drugs fail. We argue patterns of animal health seeking among the Maasai are partially the consequence of their high confidence in their own abilities in livestock disease and treatment and generally low confidence in the skills of animal health service providers. We link this high sense of self-efficacy to the culturally engrained process by which Maasai develop mastery in animal health and how the roles and norms in Maasai culture surrounding animal health influence Maasai perceptions of animal health professionals. Our results highlight the need for more research to understand Maasai perceptions of animal health service providers as well as the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of these providers. Finally, our study emphasizes that the success of drug stewardship trainings will require efforts to first understand the cultural and historical contexts driving health seeking practices that impact perceptions of animal health service providers and animal health practices more generally.
Trypanosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease of both livestock and humans. Although pastoral communities of the Maasai Steppe have been able to adapt to trypanosomiasis in the past, their ...traditional strategies are now constrained by changes in climate and land regimes that affect their ability to move with their herds and continually shape the communities’ vulnerability to trypanosomiasis. Despite these constraints, information on communities’ vulnerability and adaptive capacity to trypanosomiasis is limited. A cross-sectional study was therefore conducted in Simanjiro and Monduli districts of the Maasai Steppe to establish pastoralists’ vulnerability to animal trypanosomiasis and factors that determined their adaptation strategies. A weighted overlay approach in ArcGIS 10.4 was used to analyze vulnerability levels while binomial and multinomial logistic regressions in R 3.3.2 were used to analyze the determinants of adaptation. Simanjiro district was the most vulnerable to trypanosomiasis. The majority (87.5%,
n
= 136) of the respondents were aware of trypanosomiasis in animals, but only 7.4% (
n
= 136) knew about the human form of the disease. Reported impacts of animal trypanosomiasis were low milk production (95.6%,
n
= 136), death of livestock (96.8%,
n
= 136) and emaciation of animals (99.9%,
n
= 136). Crop farming was the most frequently reported animal trypanosomiasis adaptation strategy (66%,
n
= 136). At a 95% confidence interval, accessibility to livestock extension services (β = 7.61, SE = 3.28,
df
= 135,
P
= 0.02), years of livestock keeping experience (β = 6.17, SE = 1.95,
df
= 135,
P
= 0.001), number of cattle owned (β = 5.85, SE = 2.70,
df
= 135,
P
= 0.03) and membership in associations (β = − 4.11, SE = 1.79,
df
= 135,
P
= 0.02) had a significant impact on the probability of adapting to animal trypanosomiasis.
This study was conducted to assess the incremental effect of natural tick challenge on the infection and treatment method-induced immunity against T. parva under agro-pastoral systems in Simanjiro ...district, Northern Tanzania. T. parva specific antibody percent positivity and prevalence of T. parva parasites were studied in relation to duration post vaccination and proximity to Tarangire National park. A total of 381 cattle were included in this study, of which 127 were unvaccinated and 254 had been vaccinated at different time points between 2008 and 2014. Antibody percent positivity (PP) determined by the PIM-based T. parva ELISA and the prevalence of T. parva parasites detected by a nested PCR based on the p104 gene were used to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated cattle. Results showed that seroprevalence was significantly higher in vaccinated than unvaccinated cattle (OR 10.89, p = 0.0341). Only 1.6% (6/381) of all cattle were seronegative and 5/6 of these were unvaccinated. Prevalence of T. parva parasites was significantly higher in vaccinated (50.39%) than unvaccinated (19.69%) cattle (OR 2.03, p = 0.0144). While there was a positive association between PP and duration post vaccination but the latter was inversely associated with T. parva parasite prevalence. This study also showed that cattle which were closer to the park had higher antibody PP and T. parva prevalence. It is concluded that duration post vaccination as well as proximity from the wildlife in Tarangire National park together may exert an incremental effect on the outcome of ECF vaccination by influencing stronger antibody immunity of cattle and ability to withhold high T. parva infection pressure under constant field tick challenge. Further, the high seroprevalence in vaccinated and unvaccinated cattle suggests a likely state of endemic stability to T. parva in the study area.
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