Assessment of a Strategy to Reduce Small Ruminant Mortality in the Sudano-Sahelian Province of Northern Cameroon

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of disease prophylaxis on the reduction of mortality in small ruminants in a peasant environment. The study was conducted in 60 villages of Northern Cameroon (North and Extreme-North provinces). The small ruminant flocks of thirty villages were dewormed with Bolumisol^R (levamisole) against gastrointestinal helminthoses, and vaccinated against peste des petits ruminants with Bovipestovax^R. The other thirty villages served as untreated control. In total 18,469 small ruminants, of which 10,179 had been treated, were monitored monthly from August 1995 to July 1996. After a year, results showed that mortality rates significantly decreased (p < 0.0001) from 22.21% to 10.92% and from 25.06% to 13.15% in goats and sheep, respectively. This prophylaxis plan should be adopted in order to control the high mortality that plagues small ruminant farms of Northern Cameroon. Its economic impact is obvious and would even be greater if reproductive and growth performances were considered.