Local and wide-scale livestock movement networks inform disease control strategies in East Africa

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Abstract Livestock mobility exacerbates infectious disease risks across sub-Saharan Africa, but enables critical access to grazing and water resources, and trade. Identifying locations of high livestock traffic offers opportunities for targeted control. We focus on Tanzanian agropastoral and pastoral communities that are representative of eastern African livestock production systems. We built networks of livestock connectivity using participatory mapping data, reliant on consultation with local communities, and data from trading points to understand how seasonal availability of resources, land-use, and trade influence the movements of livestock. In agropastoral settings, inter- and intra-village connectivity through shared resources was higher in the dry compared to the wet season suggesting greater livestock traffic and increased contact probability. Unlike agropastoral communities, the livestock from pastoral areas were more clustered at communal locations during the wet season, when they also tended to move larger distances. Trade-linked movements were largely from rural to urban locations. Urban locations were central to all networks, particularly those with potentially high onward movements, for example to abattoirs, livestock holding grounds, or other markets, including beyond national boundaries. Our methodology is useful to understand livestock movements and devise strategic interventions targeting critical aggregation points and times in similar livestock production systems.

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