Agri-Health / Article / Disease Control / East Africa / Epidemiology / Ethiopia / Health (human) / ILRI / MarketOpps / PA / Zoonotic Diseases

An old-fashioned disease threatens ancient culture / emerging economy: TB in Ethiopia

ILRI’s ‘A disease called poverty’ poster: An old-fashioned deadly disease is emerging from an ancient culture and an emerging economy (poster credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan). ‘Ethiopia has the largest cattle population in Africa. The vast majority of the national herd is of indigenous zebu cattle maintained in rural areas under extensive husbandry systems. However, in response … Continue reading »

Agri-Health / Animal Health / Article / CRP4 / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Geodata / Health (human) / ILRI / MarketOpps / PA / Wildlife / Zoonotic Diseases

Pathogen ecologies and human interventions: The natural and unnatural histories of zoonotic diseases

Three diapered goats in the boot of a car in Bamako, Mali (photo on Flickr by Romel Jacinto/37 °C). This week, the Lancet publishes a series of three papers on diseases that are ‘zoonotic’, that is, infections shared by people and other animals. As William Keresh of EcoHealth Alliance (New York) and his colleagues explain in … Continue reading »

Animal Health / Cattle / CRP4 / Dairying / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Health (human) / HIV-AIDS / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / MarketOpps / PA / Zoonotic Diseases

‘Crypto’ and other diseases we get from animals are on the rise in poor countries

Leonard Gitau, a small-scale livestock farmer in Dagoretti, Nairobi, speaks to journalists during a media tour of urban farmers in Nairobi on 21 Sep 2012 (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). Sarah Ooko, special correspondent for the East African, reports that ‘animal to human diseases are on the rise’ in this region. ‘Zoonoses’ is the term used … Continue reading »

Animal Diseases / Article / Bangladesh / CRP4 / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / MarketOpps / Nigeria / PA / Uganda / Zoonotic Diseases

Draconian bans on urban livestock in developing countries ‘not the answer’–Guardian on ILRI report

Customers at a milk bar in Ndumbuini in Kabete, Nairobi  (photo credit: ILRI/Paul Karaimu). Mark Tran in the Guardian‘s Poverty Matters Blog warns us this week not to keep chickens under our beds. On the other hand, he infers, chicken bought on the street in poor countries may be safer to eat than that from … Continue reading »

Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Biotech / CRP4 / East Africa / Epidemiology / Health (human) / ILRI / Kenya / MarketOpps / PA / West Africa / Zoonotic Diseases

Urban agriculture: Where suburbs and farms, pathogens and livestock, meet and mix

A dairy farm in Dagoretti, a suburb of Nairobi, Kenya, where lines between city-life and farm-life are blurred (photo credit: Tristan McConnell). Tristan McConnell reported in the GlobalPost yesterday that ‘In modern Africa, it can be hard to tell where the city ends and the countryside begins. Rural Kenyans flocking to the city in ever-greater numbers … Continue reading »

Animal Health / Award / Biotech / Disease Control / Epidemiology / ILRI / PA / RVF

British Veterinary Association bestows award on former ILRI veterinary scientist Brian Perry

Brian Perry working in his study where he and his wife, Helena, now live, in the Rift Valley of Kenya (photo credit: Brian Perry). On 27 Sep 2012, Professor Brian Perry won the Trevor Blackburn Award of the British Veterinary Association ‘in recognition of his outstanding contributions to animal health and welfare in Africa, Asia … Continue reading »

Africa / Animal Health / Biotech / Disease Control / Epidemiology / ILRI / MarketOpps / PA / RVF

‘Zoonoses’–diseases that pass from animals to humans–are again making headlines

An initiative called the Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium, which is hosted by the UK’s STEPS Centre, at the Institute of Development Studies, in Brighton, issued a news release today regarding the science and poverty implications of transmissions of animal-to-human diseases. This comes upon reports by UK officials this week of a the … Continue reading »

Article / Biotech / Cattle / Disease Control / Epidemiology / Goats / ILRI / PA / Pastoralism / PPR / Sheep / Vaccines

New Scientist’s Fred Pearce reports on ‘How African herders rid the planet of a disease’

Tom Olaka, a community animal health worker in Karamajong, northern Uganda, was part of a vaccination campaign in remote areas of the Horn of Africa that drove the cattle plague rinderpest to extinction in 2010 (photo credit: Christine Jost). Fred Pearce writes in New Scientist about How African herders rid the planet of a disease, … Continue reading »

Article / Biotech / Disease Control / Epidemiology / Goats / ILRI / PA / Pastoralism / PPR / Sheep / Sudan / Uganda / Vaccines

ILRI’s Jeff Mariner speaks on what he learned from the eradication of rinderpest–and his new fight against ‘goat plague’

ILRI veterinary epidemiologist Jeff Mariner presents his research at a meeting of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE) (photo credit: OIE). Lauren Everitt of AllAfrica interviewed Jeffrey Mariner, a scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya, about a current article he co-authored in Science (13 Sep 2012) on lessons learned in the eradication … Continue reading »

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Animal-to-human diseases spreading with environmental changes–ILRI’s Delia Grace in The Guardian

Villagers watch on as a team restrains a small pig for blood sampling in Luang Prabang, Laos (photo credit: ILRI/Kate Blaszak). Delia Grace, an Irish veterinary epidemiologist and public health expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says shifts in forest cover, agricultural practices, mining and reservoirs are thought to be affecting the transmission … Continue reading »