Abstract
Poverty, hunger and the need for production of pigs with meagre or zero inputs have made most farmers release their pigs to range freely, thus creating a pig-human cycle that maintains Taenia solium, the pig tapeworm and cause of porcine cysticercosis, in the ecosystem. A preliminary study was designed to establish the prevalence of porcine cysticercosis by postmortem examination of the tongue and carcass of free-range pigs from February to April 2014 in Arapai subcounty, Soroti district, eastern Uganda. The tongue of each pig was extended and examined before deep incisions were made and the cut surfaces were examined. The rest of the carcasses were examined for cysts. Out of 178 pigs examined, 32 were qualitatively positive for porcine cysticercosis, representing a prevalence of 18.0%. This high prevalence represents a marked risk to the communities in the study area of neurocysticercosis, a debilitating parasitic zoonosis. Proper human waste disposal by use of pit latrines, confinement of free-range pigs and treatment with albendazole and oxfendazole are recommended.
Highlights
Pig production has increasingly become an important activity in Uganda, with the pig population increasing in the last three decades from 0.19 million to 3.6 million (Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries [MAAIF] & Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2009; Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2013)
Porcine cysticercosis is caused by the metacestodes of the cestode Taenia solium, and it is endemic in Uganda (World Organization for Animal Health 2014; Waiswa et al 2009)
The overall observed porcine cysticercosis prevalence in this study was 18.0%. This was higher than the prevalence determined by tongue and necropsy examination previously reported in eastern and southern provinces of Zambia (Mwape et al 2012; Sikasunge et al 2007), the Teso district of Western Kenya (Mutua et al 2007), North West Cameroon (Shey-Njila et al 2003), Angónia district of Mozambique (Pondja et al 2010), Homa Bay district of Kenya (Eshitera et al 2012) and the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa (Krecek et al 2008)
Summary
Pig production has increasingly become an important activity in Uganda, with the pig population increasing in the last three decades from 0.19 million to 3.6 million (Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries [MAAIF] & Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2009; Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2013). It is not surprising that more than 1.1 million families, about 18% of the total households in Uganda, own pigs (MAAIF & Uganda Bureau of Statistics 2009). This rapid increase in production has been matched by a rapid increase in consumption of pork within the country, driven by population growth and by a combination of rising income and changing preferences associated with urbanisation. Porcine cysticercosis is caused by the metacestodes (cysticerci) of the cestode Taenia solium, and it is endemic in Uganda (World Organization for Animal Health 2014; Waiswa et al 2009)
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