Peste Des Petits Ruminants (PPR) in Dromedary Camels and Small Ruminants in Mandera and Wajir Counties of Kenya

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the presence of Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) in camel population kept together with small ruminants in Isiolo, Mandera, Marsabit, and Wajir counties of Kenya. This was done in the wake of a disease with unknown etiology “Camel Sudden Death Syndrome” camels in the horn of Africa. Thirty-eight (38) samples, 12, 8, 15, and 3 samples, were collected from Mandera, Wajir, Isiolo, and Marsabit, respectively, from 25 camels, 7 goats, and 4 sheep. One camel in Mandera and one goat in Wajir were confirmed positive for PPR virus (PPRV) through reverse Polymerase Chain Reaction. The analysis of sequences revealed closest nucleotide identities of obtained sequences from both goat and camel to the lineage III of PPRV albeit with 60.29% of nucleotide identity. This study establishes that camels in the study area suffer with PPR manifest clinical signs that are mainly characterized by inappetence, loss of body condition, and general weakness terminally leading to diarrhea, conjunctivitis, and ocular nasal discharges preceding death. These clinical signs are similar to those observed in small ruminants with slight variations of manifestations such as keratoconjunctivitis as well as edema of the ventral surface of the abdomen. This shows that camels could be involved in the epidemiology of PPR in the region and that PPRV could be involved in the epidemics of Camel Sudden Death syndrome. There is therefore a need for resources to be dedicated in understanding the role camels play in the epidemiology of PPR and the role of the disease in Camels Sudden death syndrome.

Spatial Multicriteria Evaluation for Mapping the Risk of Occurrence of Peste des Petits Ruminants in Eastern Africa and the Union of the Comoros

“…The results of a seroprevalence study showed that 40% of the sheep (n = 431) and 32% of the goats (n = 538) sampled were seropositive (46). In 2016, PPR occurrence was confirmed in both camels and goats in the second main area identified at risk by our model, i.e., the north-eastern part of the country including Mandera, Wajir, Isiolo, and Marsabit districts (22).…”

“…The presence of PPR in Ethiopia has been clinically suspected since 1977 but was confirmed for the first time in 1991 from an outbreak near Addis Ababa (17) and is now endemic (18). The circulation of the disease across Eastern Africa was subsequently shown through the detection of the virus and/or of antibodies to PPRV in Kenya (1999), Uganda (2005 and 2007) and more recently in Tanzania (2010) (19)(20)(21)(22). PPR is nowadays widely spread in the whole of Africa and is endemic in most eastern African countries (2,23).…”

Camelids and Cattle Are Dead-End Hosts for Peste-des-Petits-Ruminants Virus

“…Confusion about the impact of PPRV-infection on clinical disease expression in camels might have been caused by a sampling bias, differences in the methods used for the detection of PPRV-infection (Table S2) and the possible influence of concurrent infections. A small number of camels were tested and found positive for infectious PPRV, PPRV-RNA, or PPRV-antigen during large PPR-like disease outbreaks in camels [15][16][17]61,62] (Table S2b) that complicate the interpretation of the study results concerning the epidemiological significance. A high mortality rate (up to 70%) was associated with the isolation of PPRV LII (96 CAMEL 1) and LIII (96 CAMEL 2) from two camels and Streptococcus equi isolation from two lung samples from camels in Ethiopia [15].…”

Sentinel surveillance of selected veterinary and public health pathogens in camel population originating from Southern Punjab province, Pakistan

“…This is not unexpected because PPR is endemic in the country and viral genome and antibody-based prevalence has previously been reported in wild animals (Ibex), semi-domestic yak (Abubakar et al, 2019) and small ruminants Zahur et al, 2008;Zahur et al, 2011;Abubakar et al, 2011). The virus generally causes infection in small ruminants worldwide (Al-Majali et al, 2008;Megersa et al, 2011;Intisar et al, 2017); however, it also has the propensity to cause infection in wild ungulates (Aziz-ul-Rahman et al, 2018, Rahman, 2019 and other unusual hosts such as buffalo, cattle (Balamurugan et al, 2014) and camels (Omani et al, 2019). Indeed, there exists a controversy regarding clinical infection of PPRV in camels (Ul-Rahman et al, 2020).…”

“…Resulting either from rearing in close vicinity to small and large ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goat or an experimental infection, clinical susceptibility of camels to B. abortus and B. melitensis has also been reported previously (Damir et al, 1989;Hamdy and Amin, 2002). Similarly, for viral infections in camels, seroprevalence (Abraham et al, 2005;Swai et al, 2011;Woma et al, 2015) and sequence-based phylogeny has been revealed for peste des petits ruminants (PPR) (Omani et al, 2019). Seroprevalence, either upon natural exposure (Chandel et al, B.…”