International Journal of Applied Science and Technology Vol. 9, No. 2, June 2019 doi:10.30845/ijast.v9n2p5 43 An Assessment of the Causes of Tick Resistance to Acaricides use on Cattle in kazo County Kiruhura District, Uganda Boniface Nzuve Wambua University of Nairobi Department of Geography and Environmental Studies P.O Box 30197 00100 Nairobi – Kenya Edward Muhigirwa Eastern and Southern Africa Institute of Management (ESAMI) Business School P.O Box 3030, Arusha - Tanzania Abstract Tick resistance to acaricides has become a major problem to Uganda’s livestock industry. Control of ticks requires the use of appropriate chemicals administered through most efficient methods. This paper focused on ‘assessing the causes of tick resistance to use of acaricides on cattle in Uganda, Kazo County in Kiruhura District.’ Participants targeted included: farmers, veterinary professionals, retail drug shops, suppliers and or importers of veterinary medicines thus giving a sample size of 125 respondents. Purposive and systematic sampling procedures were used to select the respondents. The data collection procedures used included: questionnaires and interviews, observations, and document review. The study findings shows that Acaricides are available and all farmers have access to them but the accessibility is however undermined by the price of acaricides, distance travelled to reach the drug shop, and use of inadequate methods for tick control thus culminating to tick resistance in use of acaricides. The inadequate regulatory framework exposes the farmer to adulterated acaricides instead of the original chemicals which has further enhanced tick resistance to acaricides. The study concludes that tick resistance to acaricides remains a challenge to management of cattle diseases in Kiruhura District due to inadequate regulation in the veterinary pharmaceutical sector which has resulted in penetration of adulterated acaricides in the market, use of outdated Essential Drug List (EDL) by stockists and influence of market forces of demand and supply. Subsequently, the paper recommends farmers to adopt the recommended Good Agricultural practices(GAP) since they result in reduced farm risks and expenses, Uganda government to increase farmers’ access to professional advice by recruitment and deployment of staff at the lower levels and further scientific research be done on the efficacy of acaricides for tick control. Key words: Tick resistance, Acaricides Chemicals 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Background study The most common method to control ticks is use of different types of chemical acaricides which are used in different method of applications such as hand dressing, spraying, spray races, systemic and dipping (McLeod et al, 1995). The prolonged incorrect use of acaricides may cause resistance in ticks against acaricides (Whitehead, 1973). The resistance can be caused by a numbers of mechanisms and when resistant ticks survive, they pass this ability by genetic to their offspring. The higher reproductive rate of ticks that have heritable resistance factors will result to increase in proportion of population of ticks that carry genes of acaricides resistance (Whitehead, 1973). Ticks, generally regarded as the ectoparasites that cause the greatest economic losses to livestock production in the world today particularly in the Tropics, adversely affect livestock hosts in several ways (Snelson, 1975): they contribute to unthriftiness and anaemia by exsanguination; they damage hides and subject livestock to secondary infection; they cause toxicoses and paralysis by the injection of their salivary secretions; and, most importantly, they transmit pathogenic agents that cause diseases, many of which result in debility and death. Of the many tick-borne livestock diseases, five are of particular concern: East Coast Fever, bovine anaplasmosis, bovine babesioses, theilerioses, and heart water. The economic impact of ticks and the diseases they transmit is enormous. Not only is the annual global cost of ticks and tick-borne diseases estimated to run to thousands of millions of dollars, but also mankind is deprived of a significant amount of animal protein that cannot be replaced from other sources (Bram, 1975; Callow, 1975; Drummond et al. 1978; Snelson, 1975).