Case-control study of potential risk factors associated with peste des petits ruminants (PPR)‎ outbreaks in the Sudan

Abstract EN

Some environmental and management risk factors were investigated in the current case- control study for PPR outbreaks in Sudan in the period from 2008 to 2012.

One hundred and fourteen Localities from 14 states out of 15 were divided into cases (n= 47) and controls (n= 67) according to the PPR outbreak history; cases are localities with PPR outbreaks through the five years of the study while controls are the localities which haven’t reported any outbreak during the study period.

Data about seven risk factors were collected and analysed using SPSS software, the factors are; ecological zone, annual rainfall, wildlife density, location at border with a foreign country, vaccination coverage against PPR, Sheep and goats population and State area.

In the univariate analysis Odds Ratios (OR) were calculated using mantel Haenszel test and three factors were found to have a significant association with the occurrence of PPR outbreaks; being a locality in a state at the country borders (OR = 2.942, p-value= .019), or locality in Low rainfall ecological zone (OR = 2.134, P-value=.052) and the factor of having large size population of small ruminant (OR = 1.591, p- value=.251).

These potential risk factors were entered into a multivariate analysis using logistic regression and only the factor of being at the border with a foreign country was found to be significantly associated with PPR occurrence (P- value = .027).