1. To develop and test field-based methodologies for epidemiological studies of cysticercosis and neurocystocercosis in Burkina Faso


2. To collect pilot data on the prevalence of epilepsy and of neurocysticercosis in rural farming communities in Burkina Faso


3. To enhance the capacity fo investigators in Burkina Faso in the conduct population-based, epidemiological investigations of infectious agents with neurological involvement in persons of all ages

• Establish an effective collaboration among investigators from the College of Public Health, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in the USA, the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sourô Sanou de Bobo-Dioulasso, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Ouagadougou and Muraz Center in Burkina Faso and ITM in Belgium


• Evaluate the needs and build capacity for conducting epidemiologic studies of human and porcine cysticercosis and human neurocysticercosis in local communities, including methods for the diagnosis of human and porcine cysticercosis


• Estimate the annual risk as well as lifetime and active prevalences of all epilepsies combined and of specific types of epilepsy, and estimate the annual risk and lifetime prevalence of single seizures


• Estimate the seroprevalence of antigen to the larval stage of T. solium and the association between human and porcine prevalence proportions


• Estimate and compare the proportion of persons with acute symptomatic seizures and with epilepsy who have neurocysticercosis (NCC)


• Validate and test the feasibility of field-based diagnostic tools for acute seizures and epilepsy, human and porcine cysticercosis and for NCC


• Develop and validate procedures for estimating the monetary burden (costs) of cysticercosis and NCC in rural communities in West Africa

A pilot study was conducted in the villages of Batondo, Pabré and Nyonyogo. In Batondo and Nyonyogo, all concessions were sampled. In Pabré, 50% of the concessions were selected at random. Within each concession, all households were sampled and within each household, one person was sampled at random to participate to the interview and to provide a blood sample. We conducted 891 interviews in the three villages.

Of the 891, 53 (0.6%) were screened as ever having had seizures and 9 as ever having had single seazures (1.0%). All participants screening positive for either multiple seizures or single seizure were examined by a study physician. After this examination and analysis of the data an estimated 41 of 891 interviewees had confirmed or possible epilepsy for an estimated prevalence of 4.6%.

Epilepsy was defined as two or more seizures coccurring without identifiable provocation. Among the cases of confirmed or possible epilepsy, 37.8% has lesions suggestive of NCC.

Serological tests are not completed yet. Preliminary results show very high estimates of seropositivitiy to the antigen stages of T. solium in both pigs and humans (14.3%), especially in Batondo where pigs are left to roam most of the time (sero-prevalence of 37.0% and 14.3% in pigs and humans respectively). Interestingly, even though the prevalence of cysticercosis was very high in pigs in Pabré (44.5%), the human prevalence was much lower (2.7%).