Theileria parva infection seroprevalence and associated risk factors in cattle in Machakos County, Kenya.

The principle objective of this study was to estimate the infection seroprevalence and identify risk factors associated with Theileria parva infection in cattle on smallholder farms in Machakos County, Kenya. A total of 127 farms were selected by a proportional allocation approach based on the number of farms in four divisions in the county previously selected by stratified random sampling method. Subsequently, a total sample of 421 individual animals was randomly selected from the farms. Information on animal and relevant individual farm management practices was gathered using a standardized questionnaire. Prevalence of serum antibodies was determined using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Multivariable logistic models incorporating random effects at the farm level evaluated the association between the presence of T. parva antibodies and the identified risk variables. The overall estimation of T. parva antibodies in the county was 40.9% (95% confidence interval of 36.1, 45.7%). Seroprevalence to T. parva was significantly associated with animal age, vector tick infestation in the animal, tick control frequency, and administrative division. Further analyses suggested a confounding relationship between administrative division and both breed and grazing system and the T. parva seropositivity. Random effects model yielded intra-farm correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.18. The inclusion of farm random effect provided a substantially better fit than the standard logistic regression (P = 0.032). The results demonstrate substantial variability in the T. parva infection prevalence within all categories of the cattle population of Machakos County of Kenya, where East Coast fever is endemic.

Detection of peste des petits ruminants virus in formalin-fixed tissues.

Peste des petits ruminants virus that causes a highly infectious and often fatal disease of sheep and goats is confirmed by various diagnostic techniques among them being isolation of the virus from cell culture systems, viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) detection by molecular assays, and viral antigen detection by immunocapture enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (IC ELISA), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and AGAR gel test. Whereas most of the confirmatory diagnostic procedures require pathological samples to be stored frozen to preserve integrity of the peste des petits ruminants (PPR) virus RNA, samples for IHC tests are preserved in 10% formalin. In this study, nine formalin-fixed pathological samples from three goats suspected of PPR were processed for extraction of PPR viral RNA and analyzed for detection with real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assay. The results showed that five out of the nine tested samples returned positive for presences PPR viral genome. This study has established that field pathological samples of PPR-suspected cases, collected and stored in 10% formalin for up 2 years, could be used for PPR virus RNA extraction for disease virus confirmation.