A slaughterhouse survey of lung lesions in slaughtered stocks at Arusha, Tanzania
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Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract
An abattoir survey was conducted on clinically healthy 115,186 cattle, 61,551 sheep and
37,850 goats slaughtered in Arusha municipality, Tanzania, between 2005 and 2007. The
objective was to determine the prevalence of disease conditions affecting the lungs. Routine
meat inspection procedures were used to detect the presence of the pathological lesions.
A total of 15,245 (13.2%), 4668 (7.8%) and 3192 (8.4%) lungs of cattle, sheep and goat,
respectively, were condemned due to nine diseases/conditions namely pneumonia, hydati-
dosis, emphysema, abscesses, anthracosis, pleurisy, calcified cysts, melanosis and bovine
pulmonary tuberculosis. Pneumonia was the leading cause of condemnations as it was
responsible for 4594 (30.1%), 1495 (31.4%) and 1072 (33.6%) of all the condemned lungs
in cattle, sheep and goats, respectively. Anthracosis, pleurisy, melanosis and pulmonary
tuberculosis were only recorded in cattle attributing to 7.3%, 6.4%, 2.9%, and 0.7% of lung
condemnations, respectively. The percentages of lung conditions recorded in 2005, 2006
and 2007 were not statistically different (P > 0.05) among cattle, sheep and goats. The differ-
ent lung lesion percentages recorded in cattle were significantly higher (P < 0.05) compared
to sheep and goats. There were no significant (P > 0.05) variations between lung condemna-
tion percentages due to various diseases during the rainy and dry seasons. Because of their
zoonotic nature, occurrence of hydatidosis and tuberculosis may pose a public health risk.
The study showed that different lung diseases/lesions in domestic ruminants are prevalent
in Tanzania. Thus, there is a need to introduce appropriate control measures of diseases
affecting lungs to minimize the rate of infection and reduce the ensuing economic losses.
The data obtained from this survey cannot be wholly relied upon as accurate, but it can be
used as a baseline for more extensive epidemiological investigations.
Description
Keywords
Lung diseases, Abattoir records, Condemnation, Cattle, Sheep, Goats