A health-education intervention trial to reduce porcine cysticercosis in Mbulu District, Tanzania

Complexities in using sentinel pigs to study Taenia solium transmission dynamics under field conditions

“…This result is considerably higher than the incidence rate of 0.69 per pig-year found by Ngowi et al (2008) in rural Tanzania and the incidence rates of 0.26 and 1.38 per pig-year found by Pondja et al (2012) in a high-endemic area of Mozambique. This discrepancy might be explained by a truly higher incidence rate in our study area, as it is generally assumed that T. asiatica is not present in Africa, and that T. hydatigena is much less prevalent in Africa than in Asia (Dorny et al, 2004).…”

“…We also note a possibly important difference in study design between our and the cited studies. We performed monthly sampling, whereas the sampling intervals used by Ngowi et al (2008) were in between 2 and 9 months (median 4 months), and the ones used by Pondja et al (2012) 3 and 5 months. Given a constant infection rate over months, the time till infection (i.e., the number of pig-months at risk) is generally considered to be exponentially distributed.…”

“…Given a constant infection rate over months, the time till infection (i.e., the number of pig-months at risk) is generally considered to be exponentially distributed. Ngowi et al (2008) report applying halfway intervals to calculate the period at risk for pigs that were positive on a given sampling moment, but negative on the preceding sampling moment. As such, the period at risk can be overestimated, and thus the incidence rate underestimated.…”

“…Studies using sentinel pigs have been described as easy to conduct and acceptable to the local population (Gonzalez et al, 1994). Sentinel pigs have already been used in field studies to monitor environmental contamination (Gonzalez et al, 1994 and to evaluate the efficacy of possible control measurements (Gonzalez et al, 2001;Ngowi et al, 2008;Pondja et al, 2012). Earlier attempts to study T. solium transmission dynamics under field conditions were based on necropsy and histopathology of the sentinels , but the use of serological tests has not yet been described.…”

The Parasitological, Immunological, and Molecular Diagnosis of Human Taeniasis with Special Emphasis on Taenia solium Taeniasis

“…However, since its effects last for only up to two years [77] MDA should be implemented for a number of years or should be combined with other control programs such as community education [78], vaccination of pigs [79 -81], and improved veterinary control of pig slaughter [1]. As stated by Lightowlers [82], the future control of T.…”