Control of peste des petits ruminants in Nigeria

Abstract Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is an economically significant disease of goats and sheep in the humid zone of West Africa. Small ruminants are an important source of animal protein since raising of cattle is difficult due to trypanosomiasis in this zone. Most village households keep a few goats as a ready supply of meat and the disease is endemic, thus, the usual control methods of hygiene, sanitation, segregation, etc. are of little use in preventing spread of infection. The only recourse left is to control the disease by vaccination. Attempts to develop cell culture attenuated homologous PPR vaccine have not yet been successful but heterologous tissue culture rinderpest vaccine (TCRV) has been found to afford solid protection against PPR for over a year. TCRV is cheap and readily available in quantity since it is being extensively used in West Africa for prevention of rinderpest in cattle. It is the vaccine of choice presently for PPR prophylaxis. Two main problems have been encountered with the use of TCRV; (i), it produces abortions and side reactions in the form of mild to frank PPR in goats incubating the disease and (ii), there are some reports of vaccine-breaks. The vaccine-breaks may be due to the administration of non-viable vaccine during the process of mass-vaccination. This is quite possible because of high ambient temperature and lack of perfect cold chain maintenance during the storage and transportation of vaccine. For goats suspected to be incubating disease, sero-vaccination can be practiced or some compensation paid for the deaths occurring as a result of vaccination in the initial stages. There is need to control other major diseases of small ruminants, like, mange, coccidiosis, piroplasmosis, pleuropneumonia, etc. without which the full effect of PPR control may not be economically appreciated.