This month, leaders from around the world will get together at the UN to agree on the world’s development agenda for the next 15 years—what they’re calling the Global Goals. It is a great opportunity to take stock of how the world’s poorest are doing, and there is a big push to spread the word about the Global Goals. Continue reading
Three diapered goats in the boot of a car in Bamako, Mali (photo on Flickr by Romel Jacinto/37 °C). This week, the Lancet publishes a series of three papers on diseases that are ‘zoonotic’, that is, infections shared by people and other animals. As William Keresh of EcoHealth Alliance (New York) and his colleagues explain in … Continue reading
Leonard 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). Sarah Ooko, special correspondent for the East African, reports that ‘animal to human diseases are on the rise’ in this region. ‘Zoonoses’ is the term used … Continue reading
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
Cavies (aka guinea pigs) in a special pig pantry off the side of a kitchen in Peru (photo on Flickr by Emile Hardman/QuintanaRoo). Could guinea pigs be a new protein source in Africa? In a special report on ‘Solutions for a hungry world’ by AlertNet, Emma Batha describes how the raising of guinea pigs (Cavia porcellus), also called … Continue reading
The Fifth Plague: Livestock Disease, woodcut by Gustave Doré, 1866 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). Anthrax, bird flu , Ebola, HIV-AIDS, H1N1, H5N1, influenza, Rift Valley fever, SARS: What are the disease links between people, animals and environments? And what are we doing to protect ourselves against the next outbreak of a deadly infectious disease? … Continue reading
In Late 2009, the US National Academies launched a report calling for “a comprehensive, globally coordinated system to identify novel zoonotic disease threats as early as possible wherever they arise so appropriate measures can be taken to prevent significant numbers of human illnesses and deaths, and livestock losses.” The report argues that “zoonotic diseases are … Continue reading
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
This manual by Lemlem Aregu, Clare Bishop-Sambrook and Ranjitha Puskur of ILRI and Aresawum Mengesha, Ephrem Tesema and Zahra Ali – independent consultants on Gender and HIV/AIDS mainstreaming in a market oriented agricultural development context: A training manual for frontline staff was released on 7 October, 2009. This training manual is based on experiences from … Continue reading
ILRI Clippings 