Abstract
BackgroundAfrican trypanosomes constrain livestock and human health in Sub-Saharan Africa, and aggravate poverty and hunger of these otherwise largely livestock-keeping communities. To solve this, there is need to develop and use effective and cheap tsetse control methods. To this end, we aimed at determining the smallest proportion of a cattle herd that needs to be sprayed on the legs, bellies and ears (RAP) for effective Human and Animal African Trypanosomiasis (HAT/AAT) control.Methodology/Principal findingCattle in 20 villages were ear-tagged and injected with two doses of diminazene diaceturate (DA) forty days apart, and randomly allocated to one of five treatment regimens namely; no treatment, 25%, 50%, 75% monthly RAP and every 3 month Albendazole drench. Cattle trypanosome re-infection rate was determined by molecular techniques. ArcMap V10.3 was used to map apparent tsetse density (FTD) from trap catches. The effect of graded RAP on incidence risk ratios and trypanosome prevalence was determined using Poisson and logistic random effect models in R and STATA V12.1 respectively. Incidence was estimated at 9.8/100 years in RAP regimens, significantly lower compared to 25.7/100 years in the non-RAP regimens (incidence rate ratio: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.22–0.65; P<0.001). Likewise, trypanosome prevalence after one year of follow up was significantly lower in RAP animals than in non-RAP animals (4% vs 15%, OR: 0.20, 95% CI: 0.08–0.44; P<0.001). Contrary to our expectation, level of protection did not increase with increasing proportion of animals treated.Conclusions/significanceReduction in RAP coverage did not significantly affect efficacy of treatment. This is envisaged to improve RAP adaptability to low income livestock keepers but needs further evaluation in different tsetse challenge, HAT/AAT transmission rates and management systems before adopting it for routine tsetse control programs.
Highlights
African trypanosomes transmitted by tsetse flies (Diptera: Glossinidae) pose one of the biggest constraints to animal and human health and livestock-crop integration in Sub-Saharan Africa [1,2]
As with previous studies [20,21,22] this study shows that restricting pyrethroid insecticides to the legs, bellies and ears of cattle significantly reduces trypanosome infections in sprayed cattle compared to unsprayed cattle
This study complements the available literature to demonstrate that RAP is effective in controlling African trypanosomiasis
Summary
African trypanosomes transmitted by tsetse flies (Diptera: Glossinidae) pose one of the biggest constraints to animal and human health and livestock-crop integration in Sub-Saharan Africa [1,2] They cause a debilitating disease in domestic animals (nagana) and humans (sleeping sickness) [3,4,5]. The distance between the two forms of HAT has been decreasing threatening a merger as a result of massive cattle restocking in south-eastern Uganda following 20 years of unrest in this region [10,15,16] This merger has recently been temporarily halted by the Stamp-out sleeping sickness (SOS) program-led preventive chemotherapy and pyrethroid insecticide spraying of Author Summary. We aimed at determining the smallest proportion of a cattle herd that needs to be sprayed on the legs, bellies and ears (RAP) for effective Human and Animal African Trypanosomiasis (HAT/AAT) control
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