RCVS Knowledge, the charity partner of the UK’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, has awarded its inaugural Plowright Prize to Professor William Ivan Morrison of the University of Edinburgh for his research combating the cattle disease East Coast fever. Ivan Morrison started his career at ILRAD, a predecessor of ILRI, where he worked from 1975 to 1990, leading, and building up, ILRAD’s research program on East Coast fever for many of those years. Continue reading
Category Archives: ECF
East Coast fever
Jimmy Smith speaks in Australia on the pursuit of a ‘low-emissions cow’ and other livestock matters
‘Visiting Brisbane in November for the International Tropical Agriculture Conference for 2017, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute Dr. Jimmy Smith discussed with Devex a range of new and exciting programs his organization is delivering to help create climate and disease resistant livestock for Africa.’ Continue reading
Kenyan herding families that vaccinate their cattle against disease send more daughters to school—New study
Vaccinating cattle in Kenya against East Coast fever sends more girls to school Continue reading
Protecting cattle against East Coast fever to boost dairy production in western Kenya
Since early 2016, AVCD dairy has been working to facilitate farmers’ awareness on the availability and access to ECF vaccines. ILRI has partnered with the county government to expand the distributional reach of the vaccine and improve vaccine delivery. Continue reading
ILRI biosciences hub and vaccine development named global public goods by heads of BMGF and DFID
Sue Desmond-Hellmann, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), and Nick Hurd, international development minister for Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), argue in the Guardian’s Global Development blog this month that the world needs to put science at the heart of development. Two of the examples of success that they cite are initiatives of ILRI. Continue reading
Blood-sucking ticks and their disease and death toll in Africa
For four decades, the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and its predecessor, the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD), conducted research on East Coast fever. Continue reading
When two parasites are better than one: (Unusual) insights into ways to combat human parasitic diseases
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
New paper on parasitic infections shows the benefits of co-infections with the ‘mild cousins’ of important pathogens
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
ILRI’s Philip Toye VOA interview on East Coast fever, and the benefits of co-parasitic infections
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
Freie Universität seeks research assistant/PhD candidate to work on live vaccines against Theileriosis
The Institute for Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine of the Freie Universität Berlin seeks a highly motivated and creative person who is interested in working within a multidisciplinary team. The successful candidate must have a microbiology, immunology or veterinary degree and should be willing to travel and work in Africa for periods of up to several months. Continue reading