Sero-Prevalence of Pestes Des Petits Ruminant (PPR) in Sheep, Goats and Cattle in Ghana.

Abstract

Peste des Petits ruminants (PPR) is an acute highly contagious, highly fatal viral disease of small ruminants, characterized by pyrexia, occulo-nasal discharge, stomatitis, pneumonia and diarrhoea. The disease is endemic in many regions of world and responsible for significant economic losses in goats and sheep due to high morbidity and mortality rates. The present study was carried out to determine the sero-prevalence of antibodies against PPRV in unvaccinated sheep, goats and cattle in Ghana. A total of 3,455 blood samples were collected from 1,617 sheep, 1,534 goats and 304 cattle, randomly sampled in 74 villages in 31 districts in the 10 regions of the country over a period of 38 months from July 2009 to September 2012. Competitive Enzyme Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay (c-ELISA) was used to detect the antibodies in sera against PPR virus. The prevalence in of PPR antibodies in sheep was 50.34% (814/1617) while the prevalence in goats and cattle were 45.50% (689/1534) and 6.90% (21/304) respectively. The overall prevalence was found to be 44.37%.

Keywords: Peste des Petits Ruminants, sero-prevalence, antibodies, sheep and goats.