Category Archives: Disease Control

Under vaccines, we develop vaccines for livestock diseases, focusing especially on ways to improve immune responses to protozoa parasites. We also improve existing vaccines (ECF, CBPP) and develop molecular approaches to problems.

Animal Health / Asia / Disease Control / Livestock / Pakistan / South Asia / Vaccines

Pakistan accredits first veterinary disease diagnostic laboratory

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The first-ever Veterinary Disease Diagnostic Testing Laboratory at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS), Lahore has received “Certificate of Accreditation” from the Pakistan National Accreditation Council (PNAC), which has mutual recognition arrangements with the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) and Asia Pacific Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (APLAC). The laboratory, established through the funding of … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Health / Disease Control / Livestock / RVF / Vaccines

Dutch develop new vaccines against upcoming Rift Valley Fever

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The Central Veterinary Institute in the Netherlands has developed two candidate vaccines to protect animals (and possible also humans) against the Rift Valley fever virus – a virus that can be deadly for ruminants and tends to be moving from Africa to Europe. Rift Valley Fever (RVF) is a viral zoonosis that primarily affects animals … Continue reading →

Africa / Disease Control / Livestock / Mozambique / Poultry / Southern Africa

Improving access to livestock disease prevention in Mozambique

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Although avian influenza and H1N1 have dominated the news for the last few years, many other serious diseases can ravage livestock and rural communities. Newcastle disease, which can wipe out entire flocks of chickens and can spread from farm to farm, is especially devastating for rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Read more … (Nourishing the … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Disease Control

Compound found that targets wide range of viruses

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Researchers from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, UCLA, Harvard University, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and Cornell University have teamed up to develop and test a broad-spectrum antiviral compound capable of stopping a wide range of highly dangerous viruses, including Ebola, HIV, hepatitis C virus, West Nile virus, … Continue reading →

Agriculture / Climate Change / Disease Control / Environment / Human Health / Innovation Systems / Knowledge and Information / Vaccines

Bill Gates says innovation can leverage change

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The needs of the poor are greater than the money available to help them, but that’s not enough to discourage Bill Gates in his work as co-chair of the world’s largest charitable foundation. In his second annual letter, issued Monday, Gates says investment in science and technology can leverage those dollars and make more of … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Disease Control / East Africa / Epidemiology / ILRI / Livestock / Markets / Trade / Uganda

Livestock trade is culprit in sleeping sickness spread

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Scientists baffled by the continued spread of sleeping sickness through Uganda have discovered that it is livestock markets that are driving the disease. A team from Uganda and the United Kingdom analysed the incidence of the serious Rhodesian form of sleeping sickness, which is carried by cattle, in two newly affected districts. They confirmed that … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Bird flu / Disease Control

Preparing for highly pathogenic avian influenza

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Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) represents a threat to poultry industries worldwide and to people’s livelihoods, and a potential threat to human health. The international community has a vested interest in minimizing the spread of this disease. Countries may be under threat of introduction of highly pathogenic avian influenza through unregulated poultry trade and marketing … Continue reading →

Africa / Animal Diseases / Animal Health / Disease Control / East Africa / ECF / ILRI / Kenya / Livestock / Vaccines

New vaccine to reduce East Coast Fever

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The high livestock mortality in East and Central Africa due to East Coast fever is set to reduce following a near breakthrough in the development of a recombinant (dead) vaccine. The vaccine once developed will be used in the immunization of livestock against East Coast fever. According to Molecular Biology Scientist Roger Pelle working at … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Disease Control / East Africa / Livestock / Uganda

Sleeping sickness: Treating cattle to protect people

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Every year, as many as 60,000 people in Africa die of sleeping sickness, a disease that passes between and among humans and animals through the bite of tsetse flies. Livestock such as cattle act as a reservoir for the disease, so treating cattle to cure them, and preventing re-infection through insecticide spraying, helps to reduce … Continue reading →

Animal Diseases / Disease Control / Livestock

Cattle ‘Black Death’ banished to history

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An animal ‘black death’ that has devastated livestock around the world for thousands of years, causing famine and untold human misery, is about to be permanently consigned to the history books. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is confident that rinderpest is beaten after being at the centre of efforts to wipe out … Continue reading →