Participatory study
The full report of the survey is given in Irungu (2000).
One of the important preliminary findings from the survey was that the
households interviewed put trypansomosis as the most important disease affecting
their cattle and they appeared to be able to recognise different forms of the
disease. Trypanocidal drugs provided the main method of disease control but
other indigenous methods were also used.
The researchers proposed in their report that some form
of community-based method of tsetse control was needed to reduce the impact of
the diseases. Before doing so, however, it was decided to investigate more
thoroughly the Orma people´s knowledge of the disease and to seek their views on
the way forward for improving its control. A study using participatory methods
of ´matrix scoring´ and ´proportional piling´ was therefore instigated (Catley
et al., 2002) in order to understand local perceptions of incidence of
different diseases, their clinical signs and causes, and preferences for
indigenous and modern disease control methods.
The participatory methods involved villagers placing
stones in squares traced on the ground which described the clinical signs that
they associated most with a particular disease. Drawings and objects to describe
the different diseases and their possible clinical signs were put on the ground
in the shape of a matrix with diseases in one direction and signs in
another.
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