Participatory disease surveillance uses a participatory technique for the collection of qualitative epidemiological information within the community observations and existing veterinary knowledge. Participatory disease surveillance wasconductedto assess and prioritize the majordiseases of sheep and goat in selected districts of Afar Regional statefrom July to September 2012 andspecifically to understand the status of PPR and SGP diseases. Three Kebeles from each district were selected out of four districts based on representativeness and a total number of twelve Kebeles were selected. Elite informantswereselected purposivelyto collect in-depth infor-mationandlO to 12 community informants were included in each PDS process.A total of 500 sera samples were also tested for antibody against PPR virus using competitive Enzyme Linked Immuno-Sorbent (C-ELISA). The informants ranked the livestock species based on the economic value fortheir livelihoodas goats, camel, cattle, sheep, donkey and chickenfrom the top priority to the least in descending order.Among listed diseases, respiratory syndrome/CCPP, SGP and tick and tick-borne diseases for goats and respiratory syndrome, diarrhea syndrome, tick infestation and SGP diseases for sheepwere the most priority disease problems top ranked by proportional piling. PPR outbreak was reported in Chifra district and the informants ranked among the top priority disease in goats. High sero-prevalence of antibody against PPR 78% (95%CI: 74.4-81.6) was detected in the study population which might be from natural infectionor PPR vaccination carried out in all districts. The sero-prevalence in goats was higher than in sheep 84.1 % and 70. 7%, respectively. In conclusion, the priority disease problems identified should be given due attention and further epidemiological studies are required to gener-Getachew Gari et al., ate information used for the future control endeavor.

Bluetongue is an infectious, a non-contagious, arthropod borne viral disease of ruminants and has been reported from most of the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Seroprevalence study was carried from July, 2013 to January, 2015 to understand bluetongue virus infection in selected areas of sheep and goats found in and around small ruminant breed improvement center. A total of 1420 sera samples from sheep and goats were collected and screened for the presence of group specific bluetongue virus antibody using competitive Enzyme-Linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay(c-ELISA) with sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 99%. The overall seroprevalence of bluetongue virus antibody was 69.01% and 60.53% in sheep and goats, respectively. Seroprevalence of bluetongue ranges from 14.5% (Adami Tulu Research Center) to 91.43 % (Benestemay). Antibody to bluetongue virus was detected from both sheep and goats in all study areas. Result of this study showed that small ruminant dwelling in and around the small ruminant breed improvement centers are exposed to bluetongue virus. In the present study areas there were no observation of clinical cases in any species of animals. This indicates that local breed of animals are resistant to clinical disease of bluetongue infection and or there may be circulation of mild virus strain in the population and so further studies are required to determine the bluetongue serotypes that are circulating in sheep and goats.