Abstract
BackgroundTrypanosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the trypanosome parasite and transmitted by the tsetse fly vector. In Sub-saharan Africa, both the human and animal variants of the disease are a great obstacle towards agriculture, development, and health. In order to better understand and therefore combat Trypanosomiasis, characterizing disease hotspots across species is critical.MethodsIn this study, 193 samples from cattle, sheep, and goats were collected from eight sites. Samples were taken from animals belonging mostly to Maasai herdsmen in the Ngorongoro Crater Conservation Area (NCA) and analysed for the presence of trypanosomiasis infection using PCR techniques. Those that tested positive for T. brucei parasite were further tested using SRA LAMP technique to check for T. brucei rhodesiense, the human infective subspecies of parasite.ResultsOur study found a high incidence of Trypanosoma brucei infections across species. Of animals tested, 47 % of cattle, 91.7 % of sheep, and 60.8 % of goats were infected. Most of the infections were of the T. brucei species. We also identified sheep and goats as carriers of the T. brucei rhodesiense subspecies, which causes acute human trypanosomiasis.ConclusionsTogether, these results point toward the need for stricter control strategies in the area to prevent disease outbreak.
Highlights
Trypanosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by the trypanosome parasite and transmitted by the tsetse fly vector
The diseases caused by trypanosomes are Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT or Sleeping Sickness) and Animal African Trypanosomiasis (AAT or Nagana)
Those samples that tested positive for T.brucei were tested using the SRA LAMP technique as previously described [27] to determine whether they have the human resistance associated (SRA) gene uniquely expressed by T. b. rhodesiense (SRA-LAMP) [28, 29]
Summary
Ethical approval Approval for this research project was granted by the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH). PCR reactions were carried out using Phusion PCR kit (Thermo Fischer F-530S) Those samples that tested positive for T.brucei were tested using the SRA LAMP technique as previously described [27] to determine whether they have the human resistance associated (SRA) gene uniquely expressed by T. b. Rhodesiense (SRA-LAMP) [28, 29] In this technique samples were considered positive if they turned green when Sybergreen was added. Those which never changed colour were assumed to contain samples that were SRA negative and were considered to contain T. brucei only. All calculations were carried out using R statistics software with the “binom” package
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