Tick (Acari: Ixodidae) infestations in cattle along Geba River basin in Guinea-Bissau

Prioritizing smallholder animal health needs in East Africa, West Africa, and South Asia using three approaches: Literature review, expert workshops, and practitioner surveys

Managing the health needs of livestock contributes to reducing poverty and improving the livelihoods of smallholder and pastoralist livestock keepers globally. Animal health practitioners, producers, policymakers, and researchers all must prioritize how to mobilize limited resources. This study employed three approaches to prioritize animal health needs in East and West Africa and South Asia to identify diseases and syndromes that impact livestock keepers. The approaches were a) systematic literature review, b) a series of expert workshops, and c) a practitioner survey of veterinarians and para-veterinary professionals. The top constraints that emerged from all three approaches include endo/ ectoparasites, foot and mouth disease, brucellosis, peste des petits ruminants, Newcastle disease, and avian influenza. Expert workshops additionally identified contagious caprine pleuropneumonia, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, mastitis, and reproductive disorders as constraints not emphasized in the literature review. Practitioner survey results additionally identified nutrition as a constraint for smallholder dairy and pastoralist small ruminant production. Experts attending the workshops agreed most constraints can be managed using existing veterinary technologies and best husbandry practices, which supports a shift away from focusing on individual diseases and new technologies towards addressing systemic challenges that limit access to veterinary services and inputs. Few research studies focused on incidence/ prevalence of disease and impact, suggesting better incorporation of socio-economic impact measures in future research would better represent the interests of livestock keepers.

MALDI-TOF MS identification of ticks of domestic and wild animals in Algeria and molecular detection of associated microorganisms

Recent studies have reported the reliability of MALDI-TOF MS for arthropod identification, including fresh or alcohol-preserved ticks based on leg-derived mass spectra. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of MALDI-TOF MS for the identification of alcohol-preserved Algerian ticks collected from different domestic and wild hosts. Secondly, we conducted a molecular survey to detect the presence of bacterial DNA in all ticks that were previously subjected to MALDI-TOF MS. A total of 2635 ixodid and 1401 argasid ticks belonging to 9 distinct species were collected in nine different regions of northeastern Algeria. The legs of 230 specimens were subjected to MALDI-TOF MS assays. Spectral analysis revealed intra-species similarity and inter-species specificity for the MS spectra, which was consistent with the morphological identification. Blind tests against the in-lab database revealed that 93.48% of the tested specimens were correctly identified. The accuracy of the morphological and MALDI-TOF MS identifications was validated by sequencing the 12S ribosomal RNA gene (rRNA) for 33 specimens and all the ticks were correctly identified. The quantitative PCR screening showed that for 219 tested ticks, 15 were positive for Rickettsia spp., 8 for Borrelia spp. and 17 for Anaplasmataceae. The PCR tests were negative for Coxiella burnetii and Bartonella spp. This study supports MALDI-TOF MS being a reliable tool for the identification of arthropods and brings new data that sheds light on tick species diversity and tick-borne diseases in Algeria.