Deaths caused by East Coast fever, the biggest killer of East African cattle, dropped 89 per cent among calves which were also infected with other species of parasite that do not cause disease. Continue reading
The Economist magazine recently ran a piece on research indicating that the ability to digest milk may explain how Europe got rich (28 Mar 2015). Continue reading
Pork joints in Uganda (photo credit: ILRI/Martin Heilmann, Freie Universitaet Berlin). The following excerpts are taken from a guest commentary, Healthy foods must be nutritious, safe and fair, published on the Global Food for Thought blog of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on 10 Apr 2015. The authors are John McDermott, of the International Food Policy … Continue reading
An Urban Zoo research project in Kenya (more formally called ‘Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio‐Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi’) is tracking pathogen flows in and around Kenya’s capital city. Continue reading
Portrait of one of Kenya’s Improved Boran breed of cattle (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann). ‘Parasites found in African cattle could offer a new insight into ways of combatting serious parasitic diseases in humans, including malaria. A team funded by the Wellcome Trust has found that cows can be protected from parasites that cause deadly diseases … Continue reading
Developing-country livestock keepers need more and better drugs to keep their animals alive and productive, and there are increasing numbers of livestock in the South, where there is increasing use of antimicrobial drugs, and poor livestock keepers will be hurt the most by development in pathogens of antimicrobial resistance. So what’s needed to avoid ‘super bugs’ arising? A new PNAS paper has this to say. Continue reading
Herds of African cattle may hold the secret to new ways of fighting parasitic diseases like malaria, which kills some 600,000 people a year, scientists said on Friday. Continue reading
Voice of America’s Joe DeCapua interview Phil Toye, a scientist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), about a paper published this week in Science Advance. Continue reading
‘. . . According to studies by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), informal markets . . . provide essential sources of food and income for millions of poor, with milk and meat that is often safer than supermarkets. Blunt crack-downs on informal milk and meat sellers that are a critical source of food and income for millions of people are not the solution,” Delia Grace, ILRI’s program leader for food Safety and Zoonoses, said during the launch of the study in Nairobi on Tuesday. Continue reading
Simple food safety training for informal vendors can limit the spread of SARS, avian influenza, tuberculosis and pathogens such as salmonella and E. coli, said the book, “Food safety and informal markets: Animal products in sub-Saharan Africa”. Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 