Climate change and infectious livestock diseases: The case of Rift Valley fever and tick-borne diseases

Cattle going to the grazing field in Afar region, Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Apollo Habtamu).

Climate change influences the occurrence and transmission of a wide range of livestock diseases through multiple pathways. Diseases caused by pathogens that spent part of their life cycle outside the host (for instance, in vectors or the environment) are more sensitive in this regard, compared to those caused by obligate pathogens.

A newly published book, The Climate-Smart Agriculture Papers, brings together some of the latest research by agricultural scientists on climate-smart agriculture in eastern and southern Africa. The 25 chapters of the book highlight ongoing efforts to better characterize climate risks, develop and disseminate climate-smart varieties and farm management practices, and integrate these technologies into well-functioning value chains.

In a chapter on climate change and livestock diseases, scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) use two well-studied vector-borne diseases—Rift Valley fever and tick-borne diseases—as case studies to describe direct pathways through which climate change influences infectious disease-risk in East and southern Africa.

Access the chapter, Climate change and infectious livestock diseases: The case of Rift Valley fever and tick-borne diseases by Bernard Bett, Johanna Lindahl and Delia Grace.

 

Meat, milk, eggs can make a big difference in the first 1,000 days of life in low-income countries—New report

ILRI news

Cover of a new report,The influence of livestock-derived foods on nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life, by Delia Grace, Paula Dominguez-Salas, Silvia Alonso, Mats Lannerstad, Emmanuel Muunda and Nicholas Ngwili, all of ILRI, and Abbas Omar, Mishal Khan and Eloghene Otobo of Chatham House, 2018, ILRI Research Report 44. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

There is great potential for

food produced from livestock

to contribute to better health

in low-income populations.

—Review by the International Livestock Research Institute
and the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security

Global efforts to limit or reduce

the consumption of meat, milk and eggs

over environmental concerns

should exclude pregnant and breastfeeding women

and babies under the age of two,

especially in low-income settings

where other sources of protein and micronutrients

are not available or not customarily used.

An extensive review of research found demonstrable nutritional benefits of providing children, particularly in…

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Animal health needs partnerships for vaccine delivery: Lessons from global rinderpest eradication campaign

Cattle being watered at the Ghibe River in southwestern Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

 

The successful eradication of rinderpest in 2011 offers vital lessons that can be applied in the ongoing quest to eradicate other deadly animal diseases.

In an opinion piece in SciDev.Net (16 Aug 2017), Delia Grace, co-leader of the Animal and Human Health program at the International Livestock Research Institute, shares her experiences as part of the global rinderpest eradication campaign.

Read the full article on SciDev.Net

 

Join our webinar! Designing projects for improving nutrition through animal source foods—Tomorrow, 4 May

ILRI Clippings

The following announcement comes from Jennie Lane,
animal health and livelihoods technical advisor for Land O’Lakes International Development.

Land O’Lakes International Development and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are pleased to announce a webinar option for their meeting tomorrow, 4 May, in Nairobi, Kenya, on Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact: Evidence and Good Practices for Informed Project Design. This one-day event will be held on the ILRI Nairobi campus from 8:30am to 5:00pm on Thu 4 May 2017. While the physical workshop is by invitation only due to space limitations, portions of the day’s presentations and discussions will be available as recordings later.  

Webinar invitation

Animal Source Foods for Nutrition Impact:

Evidence and Good Practices
for Informed Project Design

4 May 2017

Click here to register

The webinar will stream audio during the day from approximately 8:45am–5pm East Africa Time. A detailed agenda is available…

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Agrilinks and Microlinks to host webinar on safety of animal-source foods for improved nutrition

Locally made beef stew sold in Bagnon market at Yopougon, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire (photo credit: ILRI/Valentin Bognan Koné).

What are the key food safety issues related to livestock production and animal-source foods and what are their potential impacts on human health and nutrition?

Join an upcoming joint Agrilinks and Microlinks webinar on 25 January 2017 at 0900–1100 hours EDT where experts will share effective approaches to improving food safety and quality related to livestock production.

Attendees will learn about improving food safety and quality throughout the livestock value chain including production methods, processing and storage technologies, risk assessments, policy impacts, opportunities for the private sector and consumer education.

• Hung Nguyen-Viet from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) will pay particular attention to the relationship between animal-source foods and the impact of foodborne disease, while also considering how traditional and gender roles in livestock and fish value chains can impact exposure and risk.
• Dennis Karamuzi will outline the steps taken by the Government of Rwanda and the Rwanda Dairy Competitiveness Project II to increase the supply of clean milk for rural and urban consumers.
• Silvia Alonso from ILRI will discuss the role of informal markets in meeting the nutrition needs of the most vulnerable communities and the tension between food safety, livelihoods and access to food that characterize such markets. She will present new research aimed to investigate how ‘light-touch’ interventions in informal dairy markets could give win-win outcomes on health and livelihoods.

Presenters will discuss new actions taking place in development that help provide clean, safe and affordable animal-source foods to poor urban and rural households. In addition, the webinar will touch on the role of animal-source foods in the global burden of foodborne disease and why the safety of animal-source foods plays an important role in food security.

Register for the webinar

 

Can the livestock sector find the elusive ‘win-win’ on drug resistance?

A livestock health worker prescribes drugs to a dairy farmer in Bangladesh (photo credit: IFPRI/Akram Ali, CARE Bangladesh).

An opinion piece by International Livestock Research Institute veterinary epidemiologist Delia Grace shines the spotlight on the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance and the need to tackle the problem while finding a balance between low access to antimicrobials (particularly in developing countries) and overuse of antibiotics in animal agriculture.

She writes:

“Antimicrobial use is a matter of access versus excess. Somehow, we must reduce the use of antimicrobial drugs in animals to tackle growing levels of drug resistance while ensuring that these life- and livelihood-saving treatments reach those who really need them.”

Read the complete article, Can the livestock sector find the elusive ‘win-win’ on drug resistance? Devex, 16 December 2016

 

An ‘urban zoo’ project in Kenya is helping unpack the spread of disease in urban environments

ILRI Clippings

A woman sorts through a heap of garbage at the Dandora dumping site among other people, cattle, pigs and storks, in Nairobi (photo credit: Simon Maina / AFP / Getty Images).

Written by Eric Fèvre

‘There are fears that Africa’s next major modern disease crisis will emerge from its cities. Like Ebola, it may well originate from animals. Understanding where it would come from and how this could happen is critical to monitoring and control.

‘Growth and migration are driving huge increases in the number of people living in Africa’s urban zones. More than half of Africa’s people are expected to live in cities by 2030, up from about a third in 2007.

‘The impact of this high rate of urbanisation on issues like planning, economics, food production and human welfare has received considerable attention. But there hasn’t been a substantive effort to address the effects on the transmission of the organisms—pathogens—that…

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Unpacking the tensions between the nutritional and economic goals of pro-poor livestock development

ILRI news

ILRI’s Delia Grace (left) and Shirley Tarawali (right), made two of the three presentations at the second of a four-part series of meetings-cum-webinars on enhancing nutrition through market-led livestock development in developing countries. This series is being organized by Land O’Lakes International Development and ILRI (photo credits: left, ILRI/Susan MacMillan, and right, ILRI).

On 17 Oct 2016, Land O’Lakes International Development and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) hosted a one-day meeting and webinar in Washington, DC, on the challenges of increasing consumption of meat, milk and eggs in poor rural and producer households in low-income countries through improved development of local, and largely informal, livestock markets.

While donors and implementing agencies continue to promote economic gains though market-led livestock programs, less is known about how these programs can maximize the potential for animal-source foods to improve nutrition and health while also contributing to sustainable and nutritious food systems.

Bearing…

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The omnivore’s dilemma: ‘High-steaks’ livestock decisions at next week’s Committee on World Food Security (#CFS43)

ILRI Clippings

Cattle being watered at the Ghibe River in southwestern Ethiopia (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

Is it OK to keep eating meat? Or even milk, cheese and eggs?

‘It’s almost guaranteed that this topic will come up whenever dinner table conversation turns to sustainability. Livestock production has been implicated in many of our biggest environmental challenges, from climate change to deforestation to the critical state of many coastal ecosystems.

‘At the same time, animal-sourced foods are excellent sources of protein and other nutrients essential for mental and physical development, especially in young children; not to mention being in high demand among the burgeoning middle classes of emerging economies.

‘So, how do we reconcile our nutritional needs and our taste for animal-based foods with environmental sustainability?

This year’s report by the UN High-level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE), which will be discussed during the 43rd session of…

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World Water Week seminar highlights the role of livestock in sustainable agriculture

Fishermen and Sahelian goats by the Niger River, in Segou, Mali (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

World Water Week in Stockholm is organized annually by the Stockholm International Water Institute and brings together experts from around the world to discuss pertinent issues around water and development.

At the start of this year’s World Water Week, taking place from 28 August to 2 September 2016, the University of Gothenburg, the Swedish International Agricultural Network Initiative, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation convened a seminar on antimicrobial resistance and linkages between humans, livestock and water in peri-urban areas.

Among the speakers at the seminar was Delia Grace, a veterinary epidemiologist and food safety expert at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). Her presentation was based on a report published in July 2016 by the Committee on World Food Security High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. Grace was a member of the project team that wrote the report.

The presentation begins with an overview of the key role of the livestock sector in sustainable agricultural development and the global rise in demand for animal-source food, a phenomenon dubbed the ‘Livestock Revolution’. Some agriculture-associated challenges of livestock production are then discussed; these include antimicrobial resistance, foodborne diseases and zoonoses. Cross-cutting and specific recommendations to address these challenges are then put forward.

View the presentation: Sustainable agricultural development for food security and nutrition: what roles for livestock?