Epidemiological Analysis of Surveillance Data on Reportable Priority Cattle Disease Outbreaks and Vaccination Coverage in West Arsi Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia

Abstract

A retrospective study was conducted from July 2022 to September 2022 at West Arsi Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia, to identify major reportable cattle disease outbreaks and to understand the incidence, seasonal distribution, vaccination coverage and the trend of cattle disease outbreaks using passive surveillance data (DOVAR). From 1,560 DOVAR reports expected to be obtained at West Arsi Zone Agriculture Office Epidemiology Unit between 2012 and 2021, only 1,476 (11%) reports were available. A total of 1,496 cattle disease outbreaks with 1,889 cases and 346 deaths were recorded. The outbreaks were caused by Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) (35.7%), Blackleg (21.43%), Bovine pasteurellosis (15.71%), Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) (14.3%), Anthrax (11.42%) and Rabies (1.43%) in decreasing order. LSD was responsible for the highest cases (30.2%) followed by FMD (23.9%) while blackleg and LSD were the leading causes of cattle deaths, which accounted for 34.4% and 28.9% of the deaths recorded, respectively. In contrast, the lowest number of outbreaks, cases and deaths of cattle was caused by rabies. Disease outbreaks occurred in all the seasons of the year; however, a relatively higher number of outbreaks (60%) were recorded in the early dry season (September to November). This study has shown a very low level of disease outbreak reporting rate in the West Arsi Zone, which may be due to no reporting or no outbreak of diseases. Generally, this study generates information that will be used as a baseline for further epidemiological studies for the development of sustainable programs for the control of cattle disease outbreaks in the study area.