Cassava mosaic disease in Burkina Faso: epidemiological aspects and disease management perspectives.

Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) is the main biotic constraint to cassava production in West Africa. In Burkina Faso, efforts are underway to manage it sustainably using classical surveillance, including field monitoring and laboratory diagnosis. However, this method has significant limitations that make it difficult to address early management. The aim of this study was to provide recent epidemiological data on CMD, while highlighting the limitations of classical surveillance. Fields monitoring and laboratory diagnosis took 14 months for the 2020 survey and 6 months for the 2022 survey year. A total of 4,680 plants from 156 fields were assessed in 2020 and 3,810 plants from 127 fields in 2022. The overall mean incidences were 9.46% and 3.33% in 2020 and 2022, respectively. The highest incidences were found in the Centre-Ouest region (23.13%) in 2020 and in the Plateau-Central region (32.38%) in 2022. The Plateau-Central region was identified as a CMD new outbreak. In 2020 survey, African cassava mosaic virus (ACMV) rate was 93.95%, while East African cassava mosaic virus (EACMV) was 3.69%. In the 2022 survey, ACMV alone was detected in 75.95%, in double infection with EACMV in 16.46%, and triple infection with EACMV and East African cassava mosaic Cameroon virus (EACMCMV) in 5.06%. This study showed that classical surveillance is a robust method, but extremely time consuming to anticipate early management of CMD. Similarly, classical surveillance required significant financial resources for its implementation. Given these constraints, the implementation of participatory surveillance involving farmers, extension agents, breeders, plant protection services, and researchers could help in CMD management efforts. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s44279-025-00386-2.