ANIHWA CALL1:Improved Understanding of Epidemiology of PPR (IUEPPR)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

PPR is an economically important disease, especially affecting the household economy of the poorest people, affecting mainly domestic sheep and goats in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Its causative agent is a Morbillivirus closely related to rinderpest virus (RPV) which has just been eradicated, the first-ever animal virus eradicated And the second after smallpox virus. PPR virus (PPRV) infects a wide host range of cloven hoofed animals of the families Bovidae, Cervidae and Suidae, e.g. African buffalo Syncerus caffer, antelopes, deer, wild goat, sheep deer and pigs(Kock et al., 2006, 2008; Furley 1987; Abubakar et al., 2011). Many of these species are highly endangered (IUCN Red List 2012), especially those from mountainous and arid regions, where small livestock predominate. It is spreading rapidly despite availability of effective vaccines and diagnostic tests for PPR control. It is now in Turkey at the gateway to the European Union and threatening southern Africa. The failure to manage PPR is perhaps, linked to both cessation of RPV vaccination which was cross protective and widely used in domestic sheep and goats and inattention to the small livestock sector. Historically, PPR spill-over from infected domestic sheep and goats was observed in wild artiodactyls kept in fenced enclosures in the Middle East. More recently, natural infection was reported in free-ranging wildlife, notably inbharal in Tibet (Bao et al., 2011 & 2012), ibex in Pakistan (Abubakar et al., 2011& 2012), and wild goats in Kurdistan (Hoffmann et al., 2012). All these wildlife outbreaks were associated with PPR-infected livestock. The role of wildlife in PPR epidemiology remains unclear (Banyard et al., 2010). It is not known whether wildlife contributes to the local transmission, spread and maintenance of PPRV, thus possibly linking otherwise separate livestock grazing areas (Baron et al., 2011). PPRV wildlife data are too scarce to draw any conclusion. Diagnostic tools for PPR surveillance exist but they are not able to detect field infection rapidly, precluding rapid control and rapid field tests, such as Lateral Flow Devices and Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), need to be developed and validated. A challenge is accessing wildlife samples, for technical and related costs. Current methods require animal capture for sampling. Recent success in obtaining antibody and virus antigen from faeces in livestock (Abubakar et al., 2012) suggest that this method might be applicable in wildlife. Urgent attention is needed at the borders of the pandemic. Turkey is the closest country to Europe that has reported outbreaks of PPR (though disease is less widespread in European Turkey in comparison to Asian Turkey, there were 20 laboratory confirmed PPR outbreaks reports in domestic sheep and goats in European Turkey 2011-2012). It hosts the same community of wild ruminants as Europe including representatives from the Caprinae (wild goats, chamois) and Cervidae. Wild goats are of high interest as the ancestor of the domestic goats; Cervidae (roe deer, red deer) are of importance because they are the most widespread and abundant wild ruminants in Europe. Theses wild ruminants might play the role of bridge species for PPRV transmission between distant populations ofinfected and health domestic sheep and goats populations. Research is urgently needed to clarify the epidemiology of PPR in wildlife species and populations (Munir, 2013), including genomic, virulence and field eco-epidemiological studies, crucial to establish an efficient and effective control strategy for PPRV.