Towards the description of livestock mobility in Sahelian Africa: Some results from a survey in Mauritania

Understanding spatio-temporal patterns of host mobility is a key factor to prevent and control animal and human diseases. This is utterly important in low-income countries, where animal disease epidemics have strong socio-economic impacts. In this article we analyzed a livestock mobility database, whose data have been collected by the Centre National d'Elevage et de Recherches Vétérinaires (CNERV) Mauritania, to describe its patterns and temporal evolution. Data were collected through phone and face-to-face interviews in almost all the regions in Mauritania over a period of roughly two weeks during June 2015. The analysis has shown the existence of two mobility patterns throughout the year: the first related to routine movements from January to August; the second strictly connected to the religious festivity of Tabaski that in 2014 occurred at the beginning of October. These mobility patterns are different in terms of animals involved (fewer cattle and dromedaries are traded around Tabaski), the means of transportation (the volume of animals moved by truck raises around Tabaski) and destinations (most of the animals are traded nationally around Tabaski). Due to the differences between these two periods, public health officers, researchers and other stakeholders should take account of the time of the year when implementing vaccination campaigns or creating surveillance networks.