Epidemiological measures of causal association between Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) and its determinants in small ruminants

Peste des Petits Ruminants is an acute and highly contagious viral disease of small ruminants causes great economic loss to the small ruminant industries due to the high mortality and morbidity rates in infected sheep and goats. An epidemiological study was undertaken to assess the measures of causal association between Peste des petits ruminants and its determinants in north-west agroclimatic zone of Tamil Nadu, India. Study population of 1014 animals from 18 different Peste des petits ruminants outbreak flocks were taken with respect to the exposed determinants such as overcrowding, endoparastic infestation and nomadism. Relative risk, odds ratio and attributable fraction were 1.96, 2.33 and 0.49 for overcrowding, 4.48, 18.88 and 0.78 for endoparastic infestations and 0.62, 0.56 and -0.61 for nomadism, respectively. Above results indicates that overcrowding and endoparastic infestations under the study were causally associated with the occurrence of Peste des petits ruminants outbreak in this region.