An outbreak of bovine trypanosomiasis in the Blue Nile State, Sudan
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Date
2011Author
Salim, B,
Bakheit, MA
Salih, SE
Kamau, J
Nakamura, I
Nakao, R
Sugimoto, C
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Background:
In this paper, we report an outbreak of bovine trypanosomiasis in Kurmuk District, Blue Nile State,
Sudan that involved an infection with four
Trypanosoma
species in cattle. The outbreak occurred in June 2010
when indigenous cattle, mainly Kenana and Fulani breed types, crossed the national Sudanese border to Ethiopia
and returned. A veterinarian was notified of massive deaths in the cattle populations that recently came from
Ethiopia. All animals involved in the outbreak were from the nomadic Fulani group and resident local cattle were
not infected and no death has been reported among them. A total of 210 blood samples were collected from the
ear vein of cattle. A few samples were also collected from other domestic animals species. Parasitological
examinations including hematocrit centrifugation techniques (HCT) and Giemsa-stained thin blood films were
carried out. ITS1-PCR, which provides a multi-species-specific diagnosis in a single PCR, was performed.
Findings:
Parasitological examinations revealed that 43% (91/210) of the affected cattle population was infected
with two morphologically distinct trypanosomes. Seventy animals (33.3%) were infected with
T. vivax
and twenty
one (10%) with
T. congolense
. In contrast, ITS1-PCR was able to identify four
Trypanosoma
species namely
T. vivax,
T. congolense, T. simiae
and
T. brucei
in 56.7% (80/141).
T. brucei
showed the highest prevalence of 36.9% (52/141)
and the lowest 19% (27/141) was displayed by
T. congolense
. Furthermore, and because ITS1-PCR could not
differentiate between
T. brucei
subspecies, serum resistance-associated (SRA) gene based PCR was used to detect
the human
T. brucei rhodesiense
in
T. brucei
positive samples. None of the samples was shown positive for
T. b.
rhodesiense
. The identity of the 400 bp PCR product originating from
T. simiae
, was further confirmed by
sequencing and subsequent phylogenetic analysis.
Conclusions:
The outbreak of bovine trypanosomiasis occurred in the Blue Nile State was caused by mixed infection of
two or more
Trypanosoma
species and the conventional parasitological examinations were not reliable in identifying all
the species of
Trypanosoma
involved in the outbreak. It is difficult to determine the cause of the disease for the reason
that the current enzootic situation in the resident cattle in the region is poorly understood. The study concluded that
there are at least four species of trypanosomes that caused this outbreak in the Blue Nile State. The presence of mixed
infections might have exacerbated the severity of the disease. It is hypothesized that variant parasite type(s) might have
been introduced to Sudanese cattle when they crossed to Ethiopia, a tsetse belt region.
URI
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1756-3305-4-74.pdfhttp://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/46758
Citation
Salim, B, Bakheit MA, Salih SE, Kamau J, Nakamura I, Nakao R, Sugimoto C. 2011. An outbreak of bovine trypanosomiasis in the Blue Nile State, Sudan., 2011. Parasites & vectors. 4:74.Publisher
University of Nairobi, College of Health Sciences,
Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10387]