Geographical Variation in Seroprevalence in Dairy Farms Located in South-Western Ethiopia: Understanding the Broader Community Risk.

Q fever is a zoonotic disease that is caused by and leads to abortion and infertility in ruminants and debilitating disease in humans. Jimma zone, including Jimma town, located in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, was affected by an outbreak of abortions in ruminants related to Q fever infection between 2013 and 2015. This study aimed to investigate the geo-clustering of seroprevalence in dairy farms of Jimma town and identify the environmental risk factors associated with seroprevalence distribution. A total of 227 cattle were tested for antibodies against in 25 farms. We explored the clustering of seroprevalence using semivariograms. A geostatistical regression-based model was implemented to quantify the risk factors and to predict the geographical variation in seroprevalence at unsampled locations in Jimma town using OpenBugs. Our results demonstrated that the risk of exposure in dairy cattle varied across the landscape of Jimma town and was associated with environmental risk factors. The predictive map of seroprevalence showed that communities in the eastern part of Jimma town had the highest risk of exposure. Our results can inform community-level investigations of human seroprevalence in the high-risk areas to the east of Jimma.