Developing risk maps for endemic livestock diseases is important for effective disease prevention and control, particularly in resource-limited countries.
For endemic and easily diagnosed diseases such as anthrax, a useful approach involves analysis and mapping of historical data to identify disease hotspots and define risk factors of its occurrence.
A new paper published in BMC Infectious Diseases (Feb 2021) presents the results of risk mapping of the 666 livestock anthrax events that occurred in Kenya between 1957 and 2017.
The mapping exercise found that there were about 10 anthrax events in Kenya annually, with the number increasing to as many as 50 events annually by 2005.
Mapping also revealed spatial clustering of the disease events in certain sub-counties; 12% of sub-counties were responsible for over 30% of anthrax events while 36% of sub-counties did not report any incidents of anthrax over the 60-year period under study.
Additionally, there was significantly greater risk of anthrax occurring in agro-alpine high- and medium-potential agro-ecological zones than in the arid and semi-arid regions of the country.
Cattle were over 10 times more likely to be infected by Bacillus anthracis (the bacterium that causes anthrax) than sheep, goats or camels.
There was lower risk of anthrax in August and December, months that follow the long and short rain periods, respectively.
By enabling analysis of the trends and patterns of occurrence of livestock anthrax across different regions over the years, the risk maps will be a useful tool for livestock health officials to identify and characterize Kenya’s anthrax hotspots, leading to better targeting of disease management interventions.
A new study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science (February 2021) has documented the governance structure of the Nairobi pork value chain and the challenges faced by traders and how these impact on food safety.
The pork food system in Nairobi is a growing livestock sub-sector which serves as a source of food and livelihood to the city’s inhabitants. To better understand how this food system works, the study mapped the key pork value chains, assessed their governance and operational challenges and analysed the potential impacts on food safety management.
A mixed-method approach was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data on animal movements, product flows, stakeholder interactions, perceptions on system governance, operational challenges faced, business operations and market share.
A thematic analysis was also carried out to identify the themes that provide understanding on governance, challenges and food safety practices in the pork system.
The predominant pork value chains identified were the ‘large integrated company’ profile which accounted for 83.6% of marketed pork and the privately owned, small-scale local independent abattoirs accounting for 16.4%.
The study documented a number of challenges associated with governance of the pork value chains including inadequate enforcement of existing regulation, dominance of pig traders and lack of association at all nodes of the system.
The traders themselves were also beset by several challenges that could have a bearing on food safety management; these included inadequate slaughter facilities, lack of capital for upscaling, lack of training on slaughterhouse hygiene and lack of knowledge on how to manage pig diseases.
These findings provide useful insights into the structure of the pork system supplying the city of Nairobi. Policymakers and food safety researchers can use this framework to investigate and further develop the pork industry. The framework can also be used to develop appropriate programs for food safety and control of pig diseases.
The study is an output of a collaborative project on the epidemiology, ecology and socio-economics of disease emergence in Nairobi that was carried out by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute, the Kenya Directorate of Veterinary Services, Royal College London, the University of Liverpool and the University of Nairobi.
Food safety has never featured prominently on Africa’s development agenda. When it is an issue, typically the focus has been on high-value food items produced for export, while food safety in domestic markets has been largely neglected, both by governments and development partners. This must change. Recent research has shown that the health and economic consequences of foodborne diseases in Africa are significant and growing, as urbanization and income growth prompt dietary changes that increasingly expose consumers to food safety hazards.
The coming decade is critical. A ‘business as usual’ approach to food safety, involving a combination of post-outbreak firefighting and fragmented regulatory and ad hoc interventions, will do little to check the threats posed by unsafe food in many African countries. The good news is that many of these problems can be controlled and their costs reduced. A combination of incremental and systematic measures, well within the capacity of most governments, can flatten the curve of foodborne illness.
Until recently, research on foodborne diseases was mostly limited to high-income countries. Research and public health interventions in poorer countries largely focused on the so-called big three—tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and malaria—and on maternal and child mortality. Yet, recent epidemiological research from the World Health Organization shows the costs of neglecting foodborne diseases in developing countries. Worldwide, the global health burden of foodborne diseases is on par with the big three. The young, old, malnourished and poor are disproportionately impacted and children under five years of age are especially vulnerable.
Globally, Africa south of the Sahara and emerging Asia have the highest incidence of and death rates from foodborne diseases. Yet while the incidence rates of the two regions are comparable, Africa’s estimated death rate is nearly four times higher. The reasons for that difference are not fully understood, but the prevalence of endemic ailments and poor diagnostic and treatment options probably account for much of it. Drawing on data from the World Health Organization and other recent sources, we estimate that Africa experiences around 135 million cases of foodborne diseases and 180,000 foodborne disease-related deaths per year. Microbial pathogens—especially Salmonella spp., toxigenic Escherichia coli, norovirus and Campylobacter spp.—account for about 80% of Africa’s foodborne disease burden.
The economic consequences of foodborne diseases in Africa are correspondingly severe. A recent World Bank study estimated the productivity losses alone attributed to unsafe food within Africa at $20 billion in 2016 and the cost of treating these illnesses at an additional $3.5 billion. These costs are heaviest in larger, middle-income countries such as South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt, yet are also significant elsewhere. Overall, the relative economic burden of foodborne diseases is higher for African countries than for developing countries elsewhere.
Both the health and economic consequences of foodborne diseases in Africa are likely to grow as the continent develops. In low-income countries, food is typically produced close to the point of consumption and undergoes limited transformation. Starchy staples such as cassava, maize and rice predominate. Traditional processing techniques dominate and are often fairly effective at reducing risk. As they develop and urbanize, countries experience rapid shifts in diet and towards more intensified agriculture. Such transitions typically lead to increased consumption of fresh produce and animal-sourced foods and a lengthening of food supply chains. Yet much of this perishable food continues to be handled and distributed through informal channels, creating potentially multiple points for food hazards to develop. In these transitioning food systems, the official regulatory apparatus is often overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of emerging challenges.
Until very recently, domestic food safety programs in Africa have been few and poorly funded. By contrast, literally hundreds of projects supported by trade partners or development agencies have sought to address international trade-related food safety problems. These have been beneficial and have helped to push Africa’s trade in safety-sensitive foods such as fish, fresh fruit and vegetables from $3.8 billion in 2001 to $16.1 billion in 2017. But overall, the available evidence suggests that the trade-related costs associated with unsafe food in African countries are small compared to the domestic public health costs and productivity losses. In fact, we estimate the ratio between domestic and trade-related costs is likely to be on the order of 40 to 1, suggesting that the predominant attention of policymakers on the trade impacts of food safety has been deeply misguided.
African countries must implement better domestic food safety policies and support them with needed investment. But this, in itself, will not be enough to give them the upper hand against foodborne diseases. What they need is nothing less than a food safety paradigm shift. The traditional regulatory model, imported from high-income countries, centres on enforcement through regular inspection of food facilities and product testing, with set legal and financial penalties. This model is ill-suited to food systems in Africa, where smallholder farmers, micro- and small enterprises and informal food channels predominate, surveillance and inspection mechanisms can be weak and court procedures challenging and slow. It introduces an antagonistic and often unproductive relationship between government and the private sector as regulator versus regulated.
A better approach is to think of food safety as a shared responsibility between food business operators, consumers and the government. In this model, governments set forth a vision, convene stakeholders and offer a diverse set of policy instruments to involve, incentivize and leverage the actions of key value chain actors. Instead of being the ‘official food control’ authority, governments should act as facilitators encouraging investments and behaviour change. Experimentation and flexibility will be critical.
There are no quick fixes to Africa’s food safety challenges. They require a comprehensive approach that focuses on improving food safety awareness, practices and governance. Foundational investments will be needed in people, infrastructure and institutions. Addressing these issues will require sustained attention from technical agencies and government ministries as well as donors. It will require broader interventions to improve access to quality public health services, clean water and sanitation and improved agricultural productivity. It will require, in short, a commitment commensurate to the scale of the problem. It is also likely, as in other parts of the world, that improvements will ultimately be driven by better-aware consumers demanding food safety and eliciting responses from public sector and food suppliers. Recognizing that is a good place to start.
This article by Steven Jaffee and Delia Grace was originally posted on the International Food Policy Research Institute website. It is based on a chapter they and others co-authored in the 2020 Annual Trends and Outlook Report: ‘Why Food Safety Matters to Africa: Making the Case for Policy Action’ by Steven Jaffee, Spencer Henson, Delia Grace, Mateo Ambrosio and Franck Berthe.
Steven Jaffee is a lecturer at the University of Maryland. Delia Grace is a professor of food safety systems at the Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich and a contributing scientist at the International Livestock Research Institute.
The current coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has brought into sharp focus the interconnectedness of people, animals and the environment and how this can contribute to the spread of disease.
One Health is a concept that recognizes that the health and well-being of people is intricately linked to the health of animals and the environment. For this reason, disease outbreaks are best tackled through a One Health approach that harnesses the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines and sectors. This is especially so for zoonotic diseases that are spread between animals and people. One Health is also useful for addressing other public health issues such as antimicrobial resistance and food safety.
One Health is not a new concept, but it has become more important in recent years. This is because many factors have changed interactions between people, animals and the environment. These changes have led to the emergence and re-emergence of zoonotic diseases.
The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has an established record of collaborative One Health research in Africa and Southeast Asia. To mark One Health Day coming up next week on 3 November, we bring you highlights of some One Health research initiatives by ILRI and partners.
This project worked directly with over 100 actors involved in managing zoonotic emerging infectious diseases across eight multi-disciplinary teams in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. The project increased the capacity of researchers and policy implementers to use One Health approaches for better control of zoonotic diseases. The project also produced various research outputs and increased understanding of the teams’ knowledge, attitudes and practice in relation to One Health and how this approach could lead to better health outcomes for people, animals and the environment.
This project aims to improve the health and wealth of the people of the Horn of Africa by developing a regional network of individuals and organizations that can undertake high quality research into the link between people’s health and that of livestock and the environment. The project builds capacity to undertake basic and applied research in One Health through training programs and research placements for both research and non-research staff from participating institutions.
The One Health Research, Education and Outreach Centre in Africa was launched barely a week ago (on 22 October 2020) and is hosted at ILRI’s Nairobi campus. Its goal is to improve the health of humans, animals and ecosystems through capacity building, strengthening of local, regional and global networks and provision of evidence-based policy advice on One Health in sub-Saharan Africa. It has four research themes: control of neglected tropical zoonotic diseases; emerging infectious diseases; food safety and informal markets; and prevention and control of antimicrobial resistance. The centre is currently supporting the Government of Kenya’s national response to the COVID-19 pandemic through COVID-19 testing in ILRI’s bioscience laboratories.
This project applies a One Health approach to enhance the well-being and resilience of vulnerable communities in pastoralist and agro-pastoralist areas of Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The project brings together professionals in human and animal health and the environment to achieve better access to human and veterinary health services and sustainable natural resource management.
Milk and milk products are essential in the diets of the Borana pastoral community in Ethiopia. However, traditional handling and processing of dairy products using basic equipment and infrastructure coupled with a preference for raw milk consumption pose potential health risks to consumers.
A new research study published in the Journal of Dairy Science (Nov 2020) reports on the testing of a community-based training intervention to improve the knowledge, attitudes and practices of women in the Borana pastoral area of Ethiopia regarding hygienic handling and safe consumption of milk.
The intervention consisted of 16 hours of training on good milk production practices and prevention of milk-borne diseases using locally-tailored content. A total of 120 women who produce and sell milk products were trained and their knowledge, attitudes and practices assessed at three stages: before, immediately after and six months after training.
Overall, training increased the knowledge score of the participants from 75.6% before training to 91.4% immediately after training and 90% six months after training. The attitude score significantly improved from 58.8% before training to 64.7% immediately after training. Likewise, there was an observed increase in the trainees’ understanding of correct milk handling practices from 49.5% before training to 64.7% six months after training.
“Future training interventions should be complemented by locally adaptable technologies, provision of incentives and creation of an enabling environment including improved access to clean water and sanitation facilities,” the study authors recommend, adding that this could include practical sessions at the homesteads or herding places of the pastoralists.
Citation
Amenu, K., Agga, G.E., Kumbe, A., Shibiru, A., Desta, H., Tiki, W., Dego, O.K., Wieland, B., Grace, D. and Alonso, S. 2020. MILK Symposium review: Community-tailored training to improve the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of women regarding hygienic milk production and handling in Borana pastoral area of southern Ethiopia. Journal of Dairy Science 103(11): 9748–9757. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2020-18292
A new research report (Oct 2020) by scientists from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) reviews the status and policy contexts of informal milk markets in Kenya, Tanzania and Assam (India) to better understand the opportunities for a policy innovation based on training and certification to overcome market access barriers for sellers of informal milk by improving the health and safety practices of informal milk traders, thereby addressing policymakers’ concerns. It is based on an extensive review of available literature and a small number of expert interviews and contributions.
The effects of COVID-19 have gone undocumented in nomadic pastoralist communities across Africa, which are largely invisible to health surveillance systems despite their significance in the setting of emerging infectious disease.
A new research paper in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (online first 10 Sept 2020) exposes these landscapes as a ‘blind spot’ in global health surveillance, elaborates on the ways in which current health surveillance infrastructure is ill-equipped to capture pastoralist populations and the animals with which they coexist, and highlights the consequential risks of inadequate surveillance among pastoralists and their livestock to global health.
As a platform for further dialogue, the authors of the paper also present solutions to address this gap. These include the development of an integrated One Health surveillance system that links pastoralists, their livestock and overlapping wildlife populations with centralized disease reporting. Community-based syndromic surveillance and participatory epidemiology would also improve early detection and reporting of disease outbreaks for more timely control interventions.
Citation Hassell, J.M., Zimmerman, D., Fèvre, E.M., Zinsstag, J., Bukachi, S., Barry, M., Muturi, M., Bett, B., Jensen, N., Ali, S., Maples, S., Rushton, J., Tschopp, R., Madaine, Y.O., Abtidon, R.A. and Wild, H. 2020. Africa’s nomadic pastoralists and their animals are an invisible frontier in pandemic surveillance. American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.20-1004
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa launched its 2020 Africa Agriculture Status Report during the African Green Revolution Forum virtual summit hosted in Kigali, Rwanda on 8-11 September 2020.
This year’s report focuses on the challenges of feeding Africa’s cities and the opportunities available to smallholder farmers and agribusinesses to meet the needs of the continent’s fast growing urban food markets.
The report features a chapter on food safety and public health in urban food markets in Africa. Currently, Africa suffers from the highest per capita rate of foodborne illnesses in the world. The riskiest foods from a health perspective are animal-source foods, fruits and fresh vegetables. Consumption of these food products is rising rapidly in African cities.
Improving food safety in Africa’s urban food markets — both the dominant informal markets and the growing formal markets — will go a long way to safeguard the health of consumers and reduce the economic and health burden of foodborne illnesses.
Interventions include improving domestic market infrastructure, training of food handlers and increasing awareness of the shared responsibility of regulators and value chain actors to provide safe food.
Unsafe food directly undermines human health and jeopardises the attainment of national, continental and global development goals. For this reason, African governments urgently need to prioritize food safety and adopt policies and strategies that will ensure the delivery of adequate and safe food to urban markets.
World Zoonoses Day is commemorated on 6 July every year to mark the day in 1885 when Louis Pasteur successfully administered the first vaccine against rabies, a deadly zoonotic disease. The day is also an occasion to raise awareness of the risk of zoonoses, infectious diseases that can be spread between animals and people.
On this year’s World Zoonoses Day, we highlight a new research study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases (July 2020) that reports on the development, implementation and effectiveness of grassroots mass dog vaccination campaigns against rabies conducted in 2015, 2016 and 2017 in Laikipia County, Kenya.
According to the World Health Organization, rabies kills tens of thousands of people every year, mainly in Asia and Africa. Globally, rabies causes an estimated cost of US$ 8.6 billion per year. Dog bites are responsible for 99% of all cases of human rabies. Therefore, vaccinating dogs is the most cost-effective way to prevent rabies in people.
The research study found that while grassroots volunteer-based dog vaccination campaigns against rabies can be useful, these efforts need to be supported at a larger scale by county and national governments for a more sustainable approach towards eradicating the disease. Below is the author summary.
“Given the importance of mass vaccinations of domestic dogs towards eliminating human rabies in Africa and the site-specific challenges facing such campaigns, additional studies on the development and implementation of such efforts are needed.
One mechanism of mass vaccination lies in grassroots efforts that often begin at a very local scale and either develop into larger campaigns, remain local, or cease to persist past several years once interest and funding is exhausted.
Here, we discuss the development of a grassroots campaign in Laikipia County, Kenya from its local inception to its development into a county-wide rabies elimination effort.
Our results highlight challenges associated with achieving the targeted 70% coverage rate, including a need for consistent and systematic demographic monitoring of dog populations, limitations of the central point method, and logistical and financial challenges facing a volunteer-based effort.
Serious political commitment from both the local and national governments are necessary to take the budget beyond what a crowdfunded campaign can raise, including availability and access to quality dog rabies vaccines.
Without such outside support and substantial time to grow, grassroots campaigns might be better relegated to raising awareness and vaccinating dogs in small communities to protect those communities directly, without contributing to the broader ecosystem-wide transmission-stopping aim often sought by government human health and veterinary organizations.”
Poultry production is an important contributor to the livelihoods of rural populations, especially in low- and middle-income countries. As poultry production in these countries remains dominated by backyard systems with low inputs and low outputs, considerable yield gaps exist.
Intensification of these backyard poultry farming systems can increase productivity, production and income. This process is relatively recent in low- and middle-income countries compared to high-income countries. The management practices and constraints that smallholder farmers face in scaling-up their production, in the early stages of intensification, are poorly understood and described.
To shed more light on these aspects of intensification of poultry farming in low-income settings, a team of scientists investigated the features of the small-scale commercial chicken sector in a rural area distant from major production centres. Their study findings are published in the journal Animal(24 June 2020).
The study surveyed 111 commercial chicken farms in Kenya in 2016. It targeted farms that sold most of their production, owning at least 50 chickens, partly or wholly confined and provided with feeds.
The researchers developed a typology of semi-intensive farms. Farms were found mainly to raise dual-purpose chickens of local and improved breeds, in association with crops and were not specialized in any single product or market.
The study identified four types of semi-intensive farms that were characterized based on two groups of variables related to intensification and accessibility: (1) remote, small-scale old farms, with small flocks, growing a lot of their own feed; (2) medium-scale, old farms with a larger flock and well located in relation to markets; (3) large-scale recently established farms, with large flocks, well located and buying chicks from third-party providers and (4) large-scale recently established farms, with large flocks, remotely located and hatching their own chicks.
The semi-intensive farms surveyed were highly heterogeneous in terms of size, age, accessibility, management, opportunities and challenges. Farm location affects market access and influences the opportunities available to farmers, resulting in further diversity in farm profiles.
The future of these semi-intensive farms could be compromised by several factors, including competition with large-scale intensive farmers and with importations.
The study findings suggest that intensification trajectories in rural areas of low- and middle-income countries are potentially complex, diverse and non-linear.
“A better understanding of intensification trajectories should, however, be based on longitudinal data,” the authors conclude, adding that such an approach could be useful to design interventions to support small-scale poultry farmers.
Citation
Chaiban, C., Robinson, T.P., Fèvre, E.M., Ogola, J., Akoko, J., Gilbert, M. and Vanwambeke, S.O. 2020. Early intensification of backyard poultry systems in the tropics: A case study. Animal. https://doi.org/10.1017/S175173112000110X
In addition to organizations recognized for specific projects and outputs, we thank all donors which globally supported the work of ILRI and its partners through their contributions to the CGIAR system
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