The study was made from November 2008 to April 2009 at the Ethiopia Somali region, Jijiga city. It was carried out with the objectives of providing base line data on the prevalence of C. bovis. A total of 400 carcasses of randomly selected bovine animals were used for the active abattoir survey. Of the 400 carcasses examined during the study period, 9 (2.25%) were infected with C. bovis. The distribution of organ infected with C. bovis were, tongue (55.5%) and heart (55.5%), shoulder muscle (33.3%), masseter muscle (22.2%), and liver (11.1%). Analysis of active abattoir survey revealed that there was no a significant difference (P>0.05) between sex and age of the animal. The viability test on all isolated cysts showed that 20% were viable. the tongue, shoulder muscle, masseter muscle and heart had the highest number of viable (60%), (60%), (50%) and (33.3%) cyst respectively. Meat inspection cannot totally prevent the consumer from being infected through row or under cocked meat/beef. Therefore, an effective control program has to include action intervening at various points of the life cycle of T. saginata. It requires an integrated approach among all stake holders: consumers, medical doctors and pharmacists, meat inspectors, veterinary practitioners and farmers.

Culicoides biting midges (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) are the major vectors of bluetongue, Schmallenberg, and African horse sickness viruses. This study was conducted to survey Culicoides species in different parts of Ethiopia and to develop habitat suitability for the major Culicoides species in Ethiopia. Culicoides traps were set in different parts of the country from December 2018 to April 2021 using UV light Onderstepoort traps and the collected Culicoides were sorted to species level. To develop the species distribution model for the two predominant Culicoides species, namely Culicoides imicola and C. kingi, an ensemble modeling technique was used with the Biomod2 package of R software. KAPPA True skill statistics (TSS) and ROC curve were used to evaluate the accuracy of species distribution models. In the ensemble modeling, models which score TSS values greater than 0.8 were considered. Negative binomialregression models were used to evaluate the relationship between C. imicola and C. kingi catch and various environmental and climatic factors. During the study period, a total of 9148 Culicoides were collected from 66 trapping sites. Of the total 9148, 8576 of them belongs to seven species and the remaining 572 Culicoides were unidentified. The predominant species was C. imicola (52.8%), followed by C. kingi (23.6%). The abundance of these two species was highly influenced by the agro-ecological zone of the capture sites and the proximity of the capture sites to livestock farms. Climatic variables such as mean annual minimum and maximum temperature and mean annual rainfall were found to influence the catch of C. imicola at the different study sites. The ensemble model performed very well for both species with KAPPA (0.9), TSS (0.98), and ROC (0.999) for C. imicola and KAPPA (0.889), TSS (0.999), and ROC (0.999) for C. kingi. Culicoides imicola has a larger suitability range compared to C. kingi. The Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia, the southern and eastern parts of the country, and the areas along the Blue Nile and Lake Tana basins in northern Ethiopia were particularly suitable for C. imicola. High suitability for C. kingi was found in central Ethiopia and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR). The habitat suitability model developed here could help researchers better understand where the above vector-borne diseases are likely to occur and target surveillance to high-risk areas.

A cross - sectional study was conducted from November 2009 to March 2010 on cysticercosis ( Cystice rcus bovis ) and cystic echinococcosis in cattle slaughtered at Mekelle municipality abattoir in Tigray region of Ethiopia with over all objectives of determining the prevalence of metacestods and providing the baseline data on their status and socio econom ic importance in the study area. Accordingly, a total of 1800 randomly selected slaughtered cattle were examined both during ante mortem and postmortem inspection and then a prevalence of 22.2% (399/1800) for hydatidosis and 4.44% (80/1800) for cysticercos is observed. The distribution of Cysticercosis in infected organs and tissue showed: masseter muscle and heart (0.2%), lung (0.7%), tongue (0.4%) and liver (3.1%). The logistic regression analysis of potential risk factors revealed that there was statistic ally insignificant difference in the prevalence of taeniasis between animals from different origin and age (P > 0.05). Regarding the distribution of hydatid cyst; lung (13%), liver (8.2%), spleen (0.44%), kidney (0.17%) and heart (0.3%). Study results indi cated that age, body condition and origin have significant effect (P < 0.05) on the prevalence of the disease. A lower percentage of calcified cysts (23.3%) out of cyst examined and relatively high percentage, 37.8% and 38.9% of the total cysts were fertil e and sterile, respectively. The total annual economic loss from organ condemnation and carcass weight loss due to hydatidosis and cysticercosis was estimated to be 930,918.52 ETB. The result of this study revealed that metacestode is the major disease cau sing direct and indirect economic losses significantly in the study area. Control strategies should be instituted taking into account the social, cultural and economic condition at the study area.

No abstract