Meta-analysis and systematic review of the prevalence and risk factors of animal fascioliasis in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2000 and 2023.

Fascioliasis is a zoonotic disease of public health and economic importance. It is caused by trematodes species Fasciola hepatica, and Fasciola gigantica. The parasites infest the liver particularly the bile ducts, and cause harm to the host. The economic loss to both dairy and meat industry is attributed to emaciation, reduction in milk production, death, infertility, and losses to liver condemnation. However, fascioliasis remains poorly studied and limited data is available to guide appropriate interventions especially in low- and middle-income countries. This paper aimed to review the prevalence and risk factors of animal fascioliasis in Eastern and Southern Africa between 2000 and 2023. Globally recognized databases including Science Direct, PubMed and Google scholar were used to search the related studies on fascioliasis conducted between 2000 and 2023 in accordance with PRISMA guidelines. A review of papers was done for risk factors of fascioliasis, and data was extracted. A total of 106 articles met the inclusion criteria, data was extracted, analyzed using meta package in R software (version 4.21), and presented both quantitatively and qualitatively. Forest plots at a 95 % confidence interval were generated to show the prevalence estimate of different subgroups and Cochran's Q statistic was used to measure the level of heterogeneity between studies. The prevalence estimates for different animal species in Eastern and Southern Africa were 47.5 % (95 % CI: 38.0-57.2 %) in mules, 23.3 % (95 % CI: 17.0-31.1 %) in sheep, 23.4 % (95 % CI: 19.2-28.2 %) in cattle, 23.2 % (95 % CI: 19.3-27.6 %) in donkeys, 12.2 % (95 % CI: 9.9-14.8 %) in horses, and 7.9 % (95 % CI: 5.4-11.5 %) in goats. These findings clearly demonstrate the high prevalence of fascioliasis in animals in Eastern and Southern Africa. We therefore recommend enhanced awareness and promotion of effective prevention measures for the Fasciola infection control to maximize benefits from livestock production.