Using Participatory Epidemiology Tools to Investigate Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP) in Maasai Flocks, Northern Tanzania

Participatory Epidemiology (PE) was applied on the Maasai rangeland of northern Tanzania to understand pastoralist’s perceptions of the clinical and epidemiological features of Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP). The study was conducted during the period of April 2008 and caprine disease event was directed during the period of July 2006 to June 2007. Participatory methods such as Focus Group Discussion (FGD), proportional piling and matrix scoring were used to characterize pastoralist perceived clinical signs and risk factors for CCPP. The estimated mean incidence and case mortality rate of CCPP was 31.6 and 61.4%, respectively. Matrix scoring showed moderate to good agreement between informant groups on the clinical signs and risk factors. It was concluded that PE complimented with local knowledge could generally be used to generate disease information at low cost and therefore assist the design of feasible disease surveillance systems and control programmes at local and national level.