Urban population growth has created an increase in demand for food including those of
animal origin. In response to ample market, urban and peri-urban livestock farming has
expanded both in the number of livestock and the number of households engaged in
livestock keeping. As a result, human-animal interaction has increased and concurrent
increase in manure production within the same land space has increased human-manureenvironment
contact. The present study was aimed at investigating cattle and manure
management practices and associated risks of manure-borne enteropathogen infection to
humans and animals and environmental contamination in urban and peri-urban settings
of Morogoro, Tanzania.
One hundred and nineteen smallholder dairy cattle keeping households from urban and
peri-urban areas of Morogoro municipal, Morogoro rural and Mvomero districts were
randomly selected for the study. To each cattle keeping household, a non-cattle keeping
neighbor from within a radius of 100m was selected and a pair formed a cluster.
Administration of structured questionnaires to cattle keepers and non-cattle keepers,
together with observations was used to collect information about cattle and manure
management practices. Individual fecal samples were collected from all cattle present at
the household registered for the study. Stool samples from individuals from cattle
keeping households and non-cattle keeping neighbors as well as soil and water samples
were collected for the purpose of isolating zoonotic Salmonella spp., non-sorbitol
fermenting diarrheagenic E. coli and non-pathogenic commensal E. coli strains. In total,
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there were 446 cattle fecal, 201 stool, 201 soil and 201 water samples for bacteria
isolation.