PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - George Omondi
AU  - Francis Gakuya
AU  - Jonathan Arzt
AU  - Abraham Sangula
AU  - Ethan Hartwig
AU  - Steven Pauszek
AU  - George Smoliga
AU  - Barbara Brito
AU  - Andres Perez
AU  - Vincent Obanda
AU  - Kimberly VanderWaal
TI  - The role of African buffalo in the epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease in sympatric cattle and buffalo populations in Kenya
AID  - 10.1101/484808
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 484808
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/07/484808.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/12/07/484808.full
AB  - Transmission of pathogens at wildlife-livestock interfaces poses a substantial challenge to the control of infectious diseases, including for foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) in African buffalo and cattle. The extent to which buffalo play a role in the epidemiology of this virus in livestock populations remains unresolved in East Africa. Here, we show that FMDV occurs at high seroprevalence (~77%) in Kenyan buffalo. In addition, we recovered 80 FMDV VP1 sequences from buffalo, all of which were serotype SAT1 and SAT2, and seventeen FMDV VP1 sequences from cattle, which included serotypes A, O, SAT1 and SAT2. Notably, six individual buffalo were co-infected with both SAT1 and SAT2 serotypes. Our results suggest that transmission of FMDV between sympatric cattle and buffalo is rare. However, viruses from FMDV outbreaks in cattle elsewhere in Kenya were caused by viruses closely related to SAT1 and SAT2 viruses found in buffalo. We also show that the circulation of FMDV in buffalo is influenced by fine-scale geographic features, such as rivers, and that social segregation amongst sympatric herds may limit between-herd transmission. Our results significantly advance knowledge of the ecology and molecular epidemiology of FMDV at wildlife-livestock interfaces in Eastern Africa, and will help to inform the design of control and surveillance strategies for this disease in the region.