Table 4 Participants’ knowledge and perceptions of suggested CE control measures: pros and cons
From: Community perception and knowledge of cystic echinococcosis in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco
Rank | Perceived acceptable control measures | Perceived non-acceptable control measures | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
Measure | Advantages | Measure | Obstacles | |
1 | Kill stray dogs only | Help eliminate dogs and their threats | Replace sheep with goats | Against the culture (food habits, religion); many disadvantages of goat herding |
2 | Stop feeding dogs with sheep cysts | Contribute to decreasing the disease | Kill all dogs | Some dogs have a role (useful) and the right to live (have a soul) |
3 | Feeding dogs personally | Prevent dogs going out to look for their food and returning with diseases | Stop feeding dogs with sheep cysts | Cysts can be found anywhere else (souk, slaughterhouses) |
4 | Prevention versus treatmenta | More efficient than treatment | Feeding dogs yourself | Impossible to educate a dog (big appetite) |
5 | Kill all dogs | Fewer problems | Kill stray dogs only | Dogs always reappear (reproduction difficult to control) especially if culling campaigns are not carried out regularly |
6 | Bury infected offal | Prevent dogs’ access to offal | No more owning dogs | Dogs are needed |
7 | Stop owning dogs | Not specified | Do not throw away carcases | Too costly and time consuming to bury them |
8 | Stop throwing away carcasses | Avoid the bad smell | Bury wasted offal | Dogs have a strong sense of smell and offal is not buried deep enough |
9 | Replace sheep with goats | Healthier meat with fewer cysts found (less contacts with dogs) | Burn infected offal | Too costly |
10 | Burn infected offal | Prevent dogs having access to offal and people having to retrieve them Avoid bad smell | Reduce dogs’ access to slaughterhousesb | Not the best method to control the disease because it does not come from the slaughterhouse but from the pastures |