Vet. Res. 37 (2006) 633-645
DOI: 10.1051/vetres:2006025

Mapping African Animal Trypanosomosis risk from the sky

Jérémy Bouyer^{a, b}, Laure Guerrini^{a, b}, Marc Desquesnes^a, Stéphane de la Rocque^a and Dominique Cuisance<sup>c

a</sup>  Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement, Département élevage et médecine vétérinaire, Montpellier, France
^b  Centre international de recherche-développement sur l'élevage en zone subhumide, Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso
^c  Conseil général vétérinaire, 25 rue de Vaugirard, 75732 Paris Cedex 15, France

(Received 27 September 2005; accepted 28 February 2006; published online 17 June 2006)

Abstract - In Burkina Faso, African Animal Trypanosomosis (AAT) is still a major hindrance to cattle breeding, especially in the Mouhoun river basin, which was identified as a priority area for tsetse control. The attempt of the present work was to assess the abundance of tsetse flies and AAT risk using remote sensing coupled to field environmental data, along a Mouhoun river section of 234 km long, harbouring an open riverine forest where G. tachinoides Westwood is the predominant tsetse species. The water course was classified into three epidemiological landscapes, corresponding to a "disturbed", "natural" and finally "border" vegetal formation at the interface of the two formers. Using the mean number of infected flies by trap and by day as a risk indicator, the border landscape was found to be 5.4 (1.3-12.0) and 15.8 (4.7-41.6) times more risky than the natural and disturbed ones respectively. These results led to propose that a campaign against tsetse, undertaken by a development project called PAEOB (Projet d'Appui à l'Élevage dans l'Ouest du Burkina Faso), should be focussed on only 34% of the hydrographic network.

Key words: tsetse / African Animal Trypanosomosis / risk assessment / remote sensing

Corresponding author: bouyer@cirad.fr

© INRA, EDP Sciences 2006