Participatory epidemiology of endemic diseases in West African cattle – Ethnoveterinary and bioveterinary knowledge in Fulani disease control

Abstract

Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria lack adequate access to good quality veterinary services and often resort to treating their animals themselves. There are several negative aspects to this, including poor treatment outcomes, misuse of veterinary drugs and subsequent resistance, and further barriers to good relations between pastoralists and veterinary services. A participatory epidemiology survey was undertaken in Fulani communities, to examine their ability to diagnose and treat bovine diseases. Qualitative participatory epidemiology techniques including semi-structured interviews, ranking and participant and non-participant observations were used for data collection. Quantitative analysis to match Fulani disease descriptions to veterinary diseases was done by hierarchical clustering and multi-dimensional scaling. A concurrent parasitological survey for soil-transmitted parasites, trypanosomiasis and tick-borne diseases was undertaken to validate results.Fulani pastoralists displayed high levels of ethnoveterinary knowledge and good clinical diagnostic abilities. Diseases considered important by pastoralists included: hanta (CBPP); sammore (trypanosomiasis); boro (foot and mouth disease), gortowel (liver fluke), dauda (parasitic gastro-enteritis with bloody diarrhoea) and susa (parasitic gastro-enteritis). The parasitology survey supported the participatory epidemiology results but also showed a high prevalence of tick-borne diseases that were not mentioned by pastoralists in this study. The use of “hanta” to describe CBPP is important as the accepted translation is liver-fluke (hanta is the Hausa word for liver). Gortowel and dauda, two previously undescribed Fulfulde disease names have now been matched to liver fluke and PGE with bloody diarrhoea. Fulani showed low levels of bovine veterinary knowledge with mostly incorrect veterinary drugs chosen for treatment. Levels of ethno- and bio-veterinary knowledge and their application within pastoralist livestock healthcare practices are discussed.

Quantitative ethnoveterinary study on plant resource utilization by indigenous communities in high-altitude regions

“…The P -values are displayed at the top, and Pearson correlation coefficients are displayed at the bottom ( Figure 11 ). Various ethno-veterinary ethnoveterinary studies, such as Majekodunmi et al ( 61 ) from West Africa, Catley ( 62 ) from East Africa, Raza et al ( 63 ) from Pakistan's Cholistan desert, Rezende et al ( 64 ) from Minas Gerais, and Haq et al ( 65 , 66 ) from the Himalayas, have shown similar hierarchical clustering, multidimensional scaling, and associations.…”

Qualitative Research for One Health: From Methodological Principles to Impactful Applications

“…As a result, health communication campaigns (advocating cooking and better hygiene, for example) had limited impacts on culturallyembedded risk behaviors-highlighting that all interventions need to be adapted to cultural settings (6). These citations are examples of rigorous and impactful contributions from qualitative researchers to the control and prevention of zoonoses (64)(65)(66)(67), or the effectiveness of responding organizations (68,69).…”

Participatory Epidemiology of Endemic Bovine Diseases amongest Dasanech and Nyangatom Pastoralists, South Omo Zone, Ethiopia

“…Control and surveillance has been progressively scaled back in many developing countries in favour of emerging, transboundary and zoonotic diseases (Majekodunmi et al, 2018). Even though, any challenge facing pastoral livestock will directly affect the community, endemic disease management is left to livestock owners and private sector service providers (Lemma and Alemu, 2020)..…”