Category Archives: Agri-Health

A4NH / Agri-Health / CCAFS / Climate Change / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Food Security / Kenya / RVF / Zoonotic Diseases

Healthy Futures project examines ways to understand vector-borne diseases, climate change and food security

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Together with regional stakeholders, the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) generated so-called ‘socio-economic scenarios’.  These scenarios aim to explore key regional socio-economic and governance uncertainties for food security, environment and livelihoods through integrated qualitative-quantitative descriptions of plausible futures to 2030. The CCAFS vision has been to use these scenarios with … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Disease Control / East Africa / Emerging Diseases / Film and video / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Report / Zoonotic Diseases

Slum livestock = Food? Income? Disease? All three?–Al Jazeera reports on ILRI research

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Peter Greste, a journalist with Al Jazeera, recently accompanied veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert Delia Grace to the slums of Nairobi, to take a first-hand look at ‘urban farming’, livestock farming in particular. Grace works for the International Livestock Research Institute and leads a health component of a new multi-institutional CGIAR Research Program on … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Article / Cattle / Dairying / East Africa / Food Safety / Human Health / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Zoonotic Diseases

Cattle in the capital, managed well, can improve nutrition and health in Kenya’s slums

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Leornard 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). In the Nairobi suburb of Dagoretti, ‘Leonard Gichuru Gitau is a city dweller, but it doesn’t take a detective to see that he is also a … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Event / Research / Zoonotic Diseases

The deadly gifts of livestock: Livestock live talk at ILRI on 31 October 2012

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On Wednesday 31 Octtober 2012, Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) gives a ‘livestock live talk’ on The deadly gifts of livestock at the ILRI campus in Nairobi. Grace’s presentation will focus on the socioeconomic and health impact of zoonoses (diseases transmitted between livestock and humans) … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / East Africa / Epidemiology / Human Health / ILRI / Kenya / West Africa / Zoonotic Diseases

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

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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 →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Agriculture / Animal Diseases / Bird flu / Emerging Diseases / ILRI / North America / Pigs / Poultry / Zoonotic Diseases

The looming danger of diseases spread from farm animals to people–CNN

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A CNN report this week on ‘The looming zoonotic danger’ makes use of some astounding figures developed by veterinary epidemiologist Delia Grace and her team at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), based in Kenya. ‘We’ve seen an unprecedented rise in infectious diseases in recent decades, 75 percent of which are “zoonotic,” meaning they come … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Agriculture / Animal Production / Asia / Event / ILRI / Livestock / Zoonotic Diseases

Livestock challenges and opportunities in Asia discussed at regional policy forum

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Increasing livestock production to meet rapidly growing demands in a socially equitable and ecologically sustainable manner has become major challenge for the Asia-Pacific region. To discuss these challenges and to outline elements of a response, FAO, together with ILRI, IFPRI and other partners organized a Regional Policy Forum in Bangkok on 16-17 August 2012. Asia … Continue reading →

A4NH / Africa / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Emerging Diseases / Environment / Epidemiology / Human Health / ILRI / Kenya / Opinion piece / RVF / Zoonotic Diseases

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

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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 →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Geodata / ILRI / Project / Report / Wildlife / Zoonotic Diseases

The ecology of disease: NYT cites ILRI study in report on rising threat of wildlife diseases transmitted to people

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Illustration by Olaf Hajek, in The New York Times Sunday Review: ‘The Ecology of disease’, 14 Jul 2012. Jim Robbins in The New York Times Sunday Review today writes about the ways breakdowns in the world’s ecosystems can ‘come back to haunt us in ways we  know little about. . . . Multimedia Graphic Hot … Continue reading →

A4NH / Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / ILRI / Project / Report / Zoonotic Diseases

New findings of human-animal disease burden carried by world’s poor–IRIN and Reuters

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This transmission electron micrograph (TEM) depicted a number of Nipah virus virions that had been isolated from a patient’s cerebrospinal fluid. Nipah virus, related but not identical to Hendra virus, was initially isolated in 1999 upon examining samples from an outbreak of encephalitis and respiratory illness among adult men in Malaysia and Singapore (image credit: Microbe … Continue reading →