Examination of cattle herds started in North Cameroon with view to QTL-studies

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With its high bio-climatic diversity, Cameroon harbours a large variety of bovine hosts and their respective parasites. Whilst our primary aim is to study the epidemiology of Onchocerca-parasites in cattle and men, we now enlarged our fous on other cattle parasites and diseases too: Tsetse flies and trypanosomes, ticks, piroplasmidae and Dermatophilus, Culicidae and Setaria, Ceratopogonidae and O. gutturosa. Microbacterial, fungus and virus diseases are very common at places where vectors are prevalent and susceptible hosts available. Beneath the Zebu cattle (Bos indicus), which itself belongs to different breeds (white and red Fulani, Mbororo, etc.) there are inbred Goudali Zebu at Wakwa (Zebu & Holstein & Braman), pure taurine species (Bos taurus; Namchi, Ndama) in the Poli mountains to the North-West and inbred Zebu-taurine local breeds: Kapsiki and others more or less mixed local species towards the Far North.

PhD Students from the University of Ngaoundéré, Msc. Babette Guimbang and Archile Paguem have started, with a grant from the Otto Bayer Fondation and with the support of Dr. Kingsley Manchang from IRAD and Dr. Mahmoudou from the Ngaoundéré University – both are very experienced veterinarians – to examine herds of cattle from different regions of North-Cameroon. More than 300 cattle have already been examined in the area around Ngaoundéré and a second sample of another 300 cattle has just been examined in the Dept. du Mayo Rey near Tcholliré.

Examination-cattle-herds-Ngaoundere-QTL-Programme-Onchocercoses-1.

The results of this study shall enable us to deliminate the occurrence of Simulium– and Culicoides-transmitted boviner Onchocerca-species and assess their impact for the epidemiology of human onchocerciasis by zooprophylaxuis and crossreacting concomitant premunition (Dipl. biol. Albert Eisenbarth).

Sera and samples shall also be used for QTL-studies in order to link the genetic structure of the cattle hosts to their susceptability as regards the various endemic pathogens.

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