Prevalence and risk factors associated with anthrax disease outbreak in cattle in Bududa district, eastern Uganda

Abstract

Background: Uganda is predominantly vulnerable to zoonotic diseases like anthrax; over 80% of Uganda’s population is engaged in agriculture with 58% of these individuals involved in livestock farming. Anthrax is an endemic disease that affects cattle. Objective/Aim: The purpose of this study was to analyze the prevalence and risk factors associated with anthrax disease in Bududa district. Method: Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among livestock owners, consumers, and professionals. A descriptive analytic study was used to describe cases based on the case definition, primary data, and secondary data. The primary data was collected from the field observations and interviews, questionnaires, with farmers and people in the community. The secondary data was obtained from Bududa District veterinary Office and ministry of agriculture website. The collected data was entered into a MS Excel spreadsheet. Data analysis: This study applied content analysis techniques that described the actual situation of the community. Descriptive statistics was used where frequencies, proportions determined the magnitude of the disease. A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures was used to test the hypothesis/answer the research questions: Pair-wise analysis using GENstat was also used to determine the ranking of the risk factors. Results; The district reported approximately 70 death cases of Anthrax in cattle with the increased number between months of July and October 2022. There was a significantly high prevalence of Anthrax disease in the district which was under reported according to the comparisons of the Farmers’ report and the District report (p<.05). The statistical values of F-test were greater than the critical values of F. The pairwise analysis of Anthrax risk factors showed that the consumption of meat from dead domestic animals was significantly greater than the rest of the factors identified during this study. Conclusion: These findings suggested that the prevalence of Anthrax disease was high in Bududa and identified the possible risk factors that could have accelerated the occurrence of the disease.