Contribution à l’étude d’un Syndrome nerveux chez les ovins au niveau de la Commune d’Ait Ichou, Oulmès: Enquêtes Epidémiologiques

Abstract

The present work is a contribution to the investigation of a neurological syndrome of unknown etiology (locally called Taghara which means seizures) that affects sheep in the Ait Ichou area.The study was first approached by interviewing farmers to collect epidemiological data.The results showed that (1) Disease prevalence was on average 4.76 %, with 67 % of flocks having a prevalence less than 10 % and only 6 % had prevalence between 40 and 66 %, (2) About 50 % of interviewed farmers ignored the disease cause and about 10 % attributed this disorder to plants intoxication or cold, (3) The disease appeared mainly during the cold season (72 % of cases), (4) Seizures are in 68% of cases triggered by external stimulus of the diseased animals, (5) More than 50 % of affected animals died following fall in ravines whereas the spontaneous recovery was observed only in 12 % of cases, (6) Sheep flocks spent most time on forest and are rarely supplemented and when a complementation was given, it is usually performed during mating (40 %) and lambing (30 %) seasons compared to 10 % during the period of disease occurrence, (7) The disease has no interference with reproduction, affects exclusively adult animals (>1 year) and both sexes, (8) The veterinarians in the area imputed the disease in part to plant poisoning but no specific treatment has yet been developed.