Potential role of social networks in controlling African Swine Fever on the Kenya-Uganda border

Abstract

A social study on the epidemiology of African Swine Fever (ASF) was carried out in Busia County, Western Kenya and the adjacent Busia and Tororo districts of Uganda. The objective was to explore the value of social network analysis in informing options for effective intervention in the control and future eradication of ASF. To achieve this objective, data were obtained from a cross sectional study of smallholder pig-keeping households and follow-up studies carried out on traders and animal health service providers. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire. Villages were the primary sampling units and households (in selected villages) were the secondary sampling units. Selection of village clusters was by spatial random sampling executed using GIS and the 2008 Kenyan and 2010 Ugandan administrative boundaries. In the selected villages, pig keeping households were generated by village elders and chiefs and households were randomly selected from the list thus household selection was by stratified random sampling. The cross sectional study involved representatives from 683 households in four districts interviewed between July and November 2012 and two follow up studies carried out between February and May 2013 on 120 households. Extended social network interviews for the traders and animal health service providers were carried out between May and September 2013. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 and Microsoft Excel for analysis. Vensim personal learning edition was used to model pig dynamics in the study region. Social network data were analyzed using the computer package NodeXL (Hansen and Shneiderman 2009).