Detection and distribution of bovine trypanosomiasis in Malawi

Polymerase chain reaction-restriction length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) was used to identify trypanosome species in cattle from the three regions of Malawi. A total of 444 DNA samples were screened for trypanosomes using PCR-RFLP performed on whole blood samples collected from cattle between January 2016 and February 2016. A questionnaire was administered to the farmers of sampled cattle that contained sections on demographics and livestock management. Due to its zoonotic importance, T.brucei status was chosen to compare data among surveyed farms and Mann-Whitney U tests were employed for these comparisons. Prevalence information and collected questionnaire data were analysed using OpenEpi. Out of the 440 cattle with DNA samples, 2% (n=9; 95% CI: 1-3) were positive for Trypanosoma brucei, 3% (n=14; 95% CI: 1-5) were positive for Trypanosoma congolense and 27% (n=120; 95% CI: 23-31) were positive for Trypanosoma theileri. T.theileri and T.congolense appeared randomly distributed across the country while T.brucei was restricted to the central and southern regions of Malawi. The majority of the respondents were farmers (92%; 95% CI: 82-97) that were literate with the median education level being grade 7. Most respondents were smallholder farmers with a median herd size of 7 cattle and owning 1.2 hectares of land. There were no differences between the T.brucei positive and T.brucei negative groups in respect to education level (p=0.340), cattle owned (p=0.449) and land owned (p=0.920). (Texte integral)