Trypanosome burden in an emerging livestock breeding area in central-western Côte d'Ivoire

The Haut-Sassandra region, in the center-west of Côte d’Ivoire, is experiencing a real emergence of cattle breeding thanks to pasture available almost all year round. However, this region, endemic for human African trypanosomiasis, is also teeming with animal trypanosomes, which remains a brake on productivity. In this region, the real parasitic burden due to trypanosomes is not well documented. This study aims to evaluate the serological prevalence of trypanosomes using blood samples collected from 164 cattle originating from 8 farms in the departments of Daloa and Zoukougbeu. Serological tests carried out on all animals revealed an overall prevalence of 27.44% with CATT-B and 57.78% with CATT-P. According to sex, females (CATT-B+ = 28.21% and CATT-P ≥¼= 65.63%) were more infected than males (CATT-B+ = 25.53% and CATT-P ≥¼= 38.46%). The infection rates with CATT-B and CATT-P ≥¼ varied significantly (p-value < 0.05) depending on the departments and study sites. This study revealed traces of trypanosomes in cattle, identifying the cattle in these two departments as animal reservoirs of trypanosomes.