Effects of Pest des Petits Ruminants on pastoralists' livelihoods and pastoral community resilience towards the disease spread in Galkayo District, Somalia

Abstract

Peste des Petits Ruminants is an acute or sub-acute highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants caused by Peste des Petits Ruminants Virus which is in the family of Paramyxoviruses and it is related to rinderpest, measles, and canine distemper (Kgotlele, 2014). Peste des petits ruminants are also known as 'goat plague, 'Kata', 'syndrome of stomatitis-pneumoenteritis' or 'ovine rinderpest'. It is an important infectious viral disease of domestic and wild small ruminants that threatens the food security and sustainable livelihood of farmers across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (Banyard et al., 2010). The study investigated the effects of Peste des Petits Ruminants on pastoralists' livelihoods, pastoralist traditional knowledge/husbandry practices used to manage the disease, community strategies for resilience to spread of the disease also in event of loss to disease. Quantitative and qualitative approaches were used; structured questionnaires were used to collect data. Questionnaires were administered to 150members out of 240 households in the study area. The majority of respondents (56.0%) were male and only 44.0% were female; 36% were aged between 41 and 50 years and the least portion (32%) were aged between 31 and 40 years. All respondents (100%) said that animals get infected with PPR when they are mixed at watering areas. The study indicated that 66.7% of the households were vaccinating their small stock during outbreaks to control PPR and 33.3% were using Anthelmintic e.g.Oxfendazole drench which has a local name (Caal dabahawiye). Most of the households sampled 52.7% agreed that PPR has a significant negative effect on daily consumption of meat and milk from small ruminants and 47.3% disagreed. The vaccine was accessed by 60% of households all year round as the way to diminish the resilience of pastoralists towards the disease spread and is the best method to control the disease while 40% recommended technical training of pastoralists in animal vaccination. Although 67.3% of the households cooperated with NGOs to provide animal health services; the rest (32.7%) required services from private veterinarians. It was concluded that PPR can be best controlled by conducting vaccination campaigns to target sheep and goat animals and there is a need to avoid mixing animals during grazing and watering to reduce the spread of PPR in pastoral communities in Galkayo district, Somalia.