Ovine Network between Fatteners and Breeders in Middle Atlas of Morocco: Where to Act to Prevent the Spread of Epidemics?
This cartographic and analytical study, using the social network analysis method, aims to characterize sheep mobility from breeders producing lambs in the Middle Atlas Mountains to the fattening centers, passing through livestock markets in order to describe the exchange network, to identify the main mobility hubs and to secure the production of fattening lambs by improving the efficiency of the epidemiological surveillance.
The study revealed a very strong commercial relationship between middle Atlas breeders and fattening zone breeders whose longrange outflows mainly converge towards urban consumption centers. The major strategic livestock markets of the middle Atlas proved to be key points in the articulation of the flows, as was the commune gathering the fatteners. Centrality indicators were
used to identify the main trade hubs that contribute to the spread of diseases and to quantify their importance in the influence of sheep movement, while network cohesion parameters have shown that network is vulnerable to the spread of epidemics.
A social network consists of a set of individuals or groups that form nodes, connected by links that represent a certain type of relationship or interaction, or also indicating the presence or the absence of a relationship, such as the fact that a male and a female have come closer, coupled or not. The analysis of social networks allows an assessment of the influence that connections between individuals can have in the transmission of a given disease. While for the second movements, this is perfectly in line with the results of the ONSSA 200816 survey conducted among fatteners, which reports that the majority supply area for these breeders was the Middle Atlas markets.
Epidemiol Open J. 2019; 4(1): 21-30. doi: 10.17140/EPOJ-4-115