Research Article
Dinsefa Jema Hassen, Hussen
Abstract
The Five years retrospective and a cross-sectional study were conducted from October 2009 to February, 2011 in Gondar town, North Gondar, Ethiopia to assess the prevalence of hernia problems and related risk factors. Both retrospective and cross-sectional study methods were employed to collect data on hernia problems in different group of livestock. A cross-sectional study on cases brought to veterinary clinics was undertaken using pre-structured data collection checklist for species, breed, age, herd size, activity engagement (management, stocking), presence or absence of hernia, distribution, intensity and type of hernia. A five year retrospective data about any of the hernia problems encountered was collected from two veterinary clinics, namely: Gondar University and Gondar office of agriculture veterinary clinics at Gondar town. Physical and surgical examination was also conducted to characterize the type of hernia, type of hernial content and its site. A total of 459 animals of which 193 cattle, 160 sheep, 2 goats, 57 equines (horse and donkey), 37 canines and 9 swine cases were observed and only 3.5% (16 out of 459) has revealed any of the clinically visible hernia problem. Out of the total observed hernial cases 95.75% and 6.25% were acquired and congenital respectively. Mechanical trauma contributes the highest percentage of the total causes of hernia. From hernia cases brought about 62.5%, 6.3% and 6.3% were related to abdominal, scrotal and umbilical type of hernia respectively. From retrospective data obtained from a total of 10,765 recorded cases the highest percentage was related to abdominal hernia followed by scrotal and umbilical hernia.