Category Archives: Animal Diseases

Agri-Health / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Disease Control / East Africa / Ethiopia / Food Security / ILRIComms / Insurance / Kenya / Pastoralism / Presentation / Scaling

Scaling up quality agro-vet livestock services with SIDAI. ‘Livestock live talk’ at ILRI, 5 September 2013

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Livestock farmers in Africa struggle to access good quality inputs, effective knowledge and fair markets. Regulation of the livestock input sector is very weak in Kenya, allowing unqualified people to open shops selling veterinary pharmaceuticals; many of which are counterfeit or under-strength. This leads to extensive misuse of drugs through poor diagnosis and administration of products. … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Animal Production / ASF / CBPP / Epidemiology / Livestock / Nigeria / PIM / PPR / Trypanosomiasis / West Africa

Estimating the financial costs of animal disease burden, morbidity and mortality in Nigeria

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Nigeria’s agriculture sector generates one-third of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs two-thirds of the workforce. Its recent growth dominates Nigerian non-oil economic growth. Small-scale, semi-commercial farms, settled agricultural households and transhumant pastoralists dominate production. Livestock is the second largest agricultural subsector and features 16.43 million cattle, 34.69 million sheep, 55.15 million goats, 7.18 … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Health / ASF / Asia / Cameroon / Chad / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / ILRI / Kenya / Pigs / Project / Uganda

Researchers in Kenya funded to start work on development of a vaccine against African swine fever

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Smallholder pig producer family in Kiboga, Uganda (photo credit: ILRI/Danilo Pezo). ‘Scientists in Kenya have launched research of a vaccine to be used against African swine fever. The study is still at an early stage where scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are identifying antigens and best-bet delivery systems to be used. ‘“Research … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Camels / Dairying / Disease Control / East Africa / Human Health / ILRI / Interview / Kenya / Pastoralism / Zoonotic Diseases

Keeping camels, and their keepers, free of disease in Kenya, where ‘raw’ camel milk is becoming popular

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Camels cover dozens of kilometres in search of water; average distances to watering points in the outskirts of Marsabit and Moyale, in the upper east corner of Kenya, run into dozens of kilometres (photo by Ann Weru/IRIN www.irinnews.org). ‘Camels are known for their ability to travel long distances across the desert without water. ‘But they’re also … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Cattle / Central Africa / Disease Control / East Africa / ECF / ILRI / Kenya / Launch / Southern Africa / Vaccines

Vaccine developed by KARI, supported by ILRI, is ‘milestone in control of Africa’s livestock diseases’

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Faith Kivuti with her mother milking a cow in Kenya (photo on Flickr by Jeff Haskins). A vaccine to protect cattle against a lethal disease known as East Coast fever has been launched in Kenya, where Kenya Livestock Development Minister Mohammed Kuti says the development ‘is a big relief to livestock farmers in East, Central and … Continue reading →

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 →

Crop-Livestock / Directorate / Event / ILRI / India / Markets / PPR / South Asia

Lessons from India’s smallholder dairy successes can help developing world–ILRI’s Jimmy Smith

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On 4 Nov 2012, an ILRI delegation of 28 visited the village of Araipura, in the Karnal District in the Indian state of Haryana, where they held discussions with dairy farm families. The ILRI management team and board of trustees also visited the National Dairy Research Institute. (Photo credit: ILRI) ‘Operation Flood in Gujarat is … Continue reading →

A4NH / Animal Diseases / Article / Bangladesh / Bird flu / Disease Control / Emerging Diseases / Epidemiology / Film and video / ILRI / Kenya / Nigeria / Uganda / Zoonotic Diseases

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

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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 →

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 →