ILRI research on animal health and food safety featured at the 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture

ILRI scientist Silvia Alonso presents at the 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture held at Nairobi, Kenya on 27-30 October 2014 (photo credit: ILRI/Tezira Lore).

Scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) yesterday (28 Oct 2014) presented some of their recent research findings from studies on animal health and food safety in East Africa at the 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture. The conference is being held from 27 to 30 October 2014 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

Some 300 participants from all over Africa and beyond are attending the conference whose theme is Africa’s animal agriculture: Macro-trends and future opportunities. The five conference sub-themes are:

• Youth: The future hope?
• Which way for smallholder production systems?
• Pastoral systems: Options for tomorrow
• Market access: Opportunities for enhanced access to local, regional and global markets
• Africa’s human capacity challenge for animal agriculture: Which way now?

Silvia Alonso, a postdoctoral scientist with ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program presented the following two papers:

• Smallholder pig producers and their pork consumption practices in three districts in Uganda (presented on behalf of lead author Kristina Roesel, an ILRI graduate fellow at Freie Universitaet Berlin and coordinator of the Safe Food, Fair Food project)
• Vaccination as a way forward? A case study on how a poultry vaccination intervention influences poultry keeping in Kenya (presented on behalf of lead author Johanna Lindahl, an ILRI postdoctoral scientist)

Results from a study on Kenyan milk consumers’ behaviour and perceptions of aflatoxin were also presented. This study was a joint output of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health and the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets.

Additionally, the following ILRI posters on smallholder dairying in Tanzania and pastoralism in Kenya and Tanzania featured in the poster session:

• Smallholder dairy farming in Tanzania: Farming practices, and animal health and public health challenges and opportunities
• Pastoralism in Kenya and Tanzania: Challenges and opportunities in animal health and food security
• Creating novel approaches to mitigate aflatoxin risk in food and feed with lactic acid bacteria – mold growth inhibition and aflatoxin binding

 

Posters by projects in ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses program featured at the 6th All Africa Conference on Animal Agriculture held at Nairobi, Kenya on 27-30 October 2014 (photo credit: ILRI/Tezira Lore).

 

 

 

Ebola: Three unpalatable truths

ILRI Clippings

The district of Kailahun, in eastern Sierra Leone, bordering Guinea, is home to this 88-bed largest Ebola treatment and isolation centre set up by Médecins Sans Frontières (photo on Flickr by ©EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre).

This opinion piece is written by Eliza Smith

‘By now, it seems we’ve heard everything there is to hear about the mysterious bloody disease called Ebola: heartbreaking tales of loss and heroism, news of ground-breaking science to find a cure, reports of panic and much misinformation.

‘But there are three simple, if unpalatable, truths that we aren’t hearing enough about.

‘First, this is not a particularly mysterious disease.

‘It’s one of many haemorrhagic fevers caused by well-researched RNA viruses, including Lassa, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic, dengue (‘break bone’) and yellow (jungle) fevers. All of them can cause similar symptoms in humans: fever, increased tendency to bleed and often death.

Scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus budding from the surface…

View original post 580 more words

 

Slaughterhouse number 5 – examining zoonotic diseases in western Kenya

 

Annie Cook is a graduate fellow at the International Livestock Research Institute in Kenya. In this blog post she describes a day in the life of her PhD project.

“I am a veterinary epidemiologist which means I investigate the behaviour of diseases in animal populations. I am particularly interested in zoonoses: diseases that pass from animals to people.”

“The research project I am conducting was requested by the community. During a previous study that looked at zoonotic diseases in pigs at slaughter, our research group was asked to develop a project examining disease in the workers themselves. The workers wanted to know the occupational risks they faced at work.”

Read the full post on the CGIAR Development Dialogues blog

 

ILRI scientist Delia Grace receives the Trevor Blackburn Award for contributions to animal health and food safety

Delia Grace, veterinary epidemiologist at the International Livestock Research Institute (photo credit: ILRI/Susan MacMillan).

We are pleased to congratulate Delia Grace on being announced as the winner of the British Veterinary Association’s (BVA) Trevor Blackburn Award in recognition of her multiple outstanding contributions to animal health, animal welfare and food safety in Africa and Asia.

In particular, she was recognized for her work with community health programs and research into public health and food safety; her pioneering work highlighting the benefits and risks of the engagement of women in livestock farming in developing countries; and the delivery of training and studies in numerous African countries.

The announcement was made today, 25 September 2014, during the awards ceremony at the BVA Members’ Day in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Grace is a veterinary epidemiologist with nearly 20 years’ experience in developing countries. She leads the Food Safety and Zoonoses program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Agriculture-Associated Diseases theme of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH).

She has previously worked in various capacities and settings including general practice in Lancashire; voluntary service in rural Bangladesh; exploring the roles of community animal health systems in eastern Africa; undertaking applied research addressing the enormity of trypanosomiasis control in West Africa; advising the World Health Organization and high-level policy engagement at national and regional levels in Africa and Asia.

On learning that she was to receive the Trevor Blackburn Award for 2014, Grace commented:

“I am delighted to receive this award. I have been working since 1995 on animal health problems and their solutions in different countries of Africa and Asia.

“Around one billion poor people depend on livestock for their livelihoods and livestock disease is one of their greatest concerns and constraints. As much as a third of the value of livestock is lost each year from largely preventable diseases.

“British and Irish veterinarians have had a long history of working overseas to improve animal health and I am proud to be part of this tradition.”

Iain Wright, ILRI’s interim deputy director general, also expressed his delight upon hearing the good news.

He said: “Delia is recognized as a global leader in research on food safety and zoonoses in developing countries and is a strong supporter of the ‘One Health’ approach.”

“Having worked with community animal health care workers, she appreciates the realities of delivering animal health care services on the ground and brings this experience to bear in ensuring that her research is practical and relevant.”

The Trevor Blackburn Award recognizes contributions to animal health and welfare in a developing country by BVA members and was set up in memory of Trevor Blackburn who was president of the BVA 1984 to 1985, Commonwealth Veterinary Association 1988 to 1991 and World Veterinary Association 1991 to 1995.

View some of Delia Grace’s research publications here

 

Healthy lives: Tackling food-borne diseases and zoonoses

Agriculture imposes large burdens on human health. Three million deaths a year and one-quarter of all deaths from infection are agriculture-associated, and almost all of these occur in developing countries.

Zoonotic and food-borne diseases kill 2.2 million people and sicken 2.4 billion people annually; poor people are most affected by these diseases. For 70% of agriculture-associated diseases, proven and cost-effective agricultural solutions exist.

The presentation below, made at the Tropentag 2014 conference, gives an overview of the global burden of zoonotic and food-borne diseases and some research-based interventions that can be used to prevent and control these diseases.

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Healthy lives: Tackling food-borne diseases and zoonoses

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.

 

Sustainable intensification?: Implications for the emergence of diseases

Currently new diseases are emerging at the rate of one every four months and three out of four of these diseases jump species from other animals. Many of these diseases are associated with agriculture. Scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) led two systematic reviews of disease emergence and burden to help in prioritization. The poster below, prepared for the Tropentag 2014 conference, presents the key findings of the reviews.

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Sustainable intensification?: Implications for the emergence of diseases

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.

 

Mitigation of the impacts of Rift Valley fever through targeted vaccination strategies

The Rift Valley fever virus is a mosquito-borne pathogen that causes explosive outbreaks of severe human and livestock disease in Africa and Arabian Peninsula. The rapid evolution of outbreaks of Rift Valley fever generates exceptional challenges in its mitigation and control.

A decision-support tool for prevention and control of Rift Valley fever in the Greater Horn of Africa identifies a series of events that indicates increasing risk of an outbreak and matches interventions to each event.

This poster, prepared for the Tropentag 2014 conference, presents information from a study that assessed the effectiveness of targeted vaccination in mitigating the impacts of outbreaks of Rift Valley fever.

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Mitigation of the impacts of Rift Valley fever through targeted vaccination strategies

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.

 

 

Managing the health risks associated with agriculture: An overview of research by ILRI

Over 60% of the newly identified infectious diseases that have affected people over the past few decades have been caused by pathogens originating from animals or animal products.

In agricultural areas that use more water, people face increased risk of infectious diseases, especially through zoonotic diseases (diseases transmissible from animals to people) as well as water-borne and vector-borne diseases.

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) carries out research to maximise the nutritional and health benefits of agricultural development. The programme has four research themes: value chains, biofortification, control of agriculture-associated diseases, and integrated programs and policies.

The poster below, prepared for the Tropentag 2014 conference, presents an overview of a research carried out by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which leads the research theme on the prevention and control of agriculture-associated diseases within A4NH.

This research theme generates evidence on the prevalence, dynamics and burdens of agriculture-associated diseases by developing and testing the tools and approaches needed to better manage such diseases.

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Managing the health risks associated with agriculture: An overview of research by the International Livestock Research Institute

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.

 

Pastoralism: Animal health and food safety situation analysis in Kenya and Tanzania

Pastoralism is a farming system practised in arid and semi arid lands by societies that derive most of their food and income from livestock production. About 70% of the land mass in the Horn of Africa is dry land. In Kenya 80% of the land mass is classified as arid and semi-arid while approximately half of Tanzania consists of dry land. These dry lands can only be effectively used for livestock rearing, supporting wildlife resource harvesting and tourism.

The poster below, prepared for the Tropentag 2014 conference, presents findings of a situation analysis of animal health and its implication on food safety in Kenya and Tanzania. The study reports on livestock diseases with high prevalence and their likely effects on food safety and food security in pastoral communities in the two countries. The extent of species rearing diversification, pastoralist trade orientation and practices that may expose the community and their trading partners to animal and zoonotic infections are also explained.

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Pastoralism: Animal health and food safety situation analysis, Kenya and Tanzania

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague, Czech Republic (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.

 

Aflatoxins: serious threat to food safety and food security, but is it related to livestock?

Aflatoxins are cancer-causing mycotoxins produced by the mould Aspergillus flavus. Aspergillus can grow in a wide range of foods and feed and thrives under favourable conditions of high temperature and moisture content.

Aflatoxin contamination can occur before crops are harvested when temperatures are high, during harvest if wet conditions occur and after harvest if there is insect damage to the stored crop or if moisture levels are high during storage and transportation.

Aflatoxins in contaminated animal feed not only result in reduced animal productivity, but can also end up in milk, meat and eggs, thus presenting a health risk to humans.

The poster below, prepared for the Tropentag 2014  conference, presents an overview of a research project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) aimed at measuring and mitigating the risk of aflatoxins in the feed-dairy chain in Kenya.

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Aflatoxins: serious threat to food safety and food security, but is it related to livestock?

This week, ILRI staff are participating in the Tropentag 2014 International Conference in Prague (17-19 September 2014). There is also a dedicated ILRI@40 side event on livestock-based options for sustainable food and nutritional security and healthy lives.  See all the posters.