Making livestock vaccination campaigns work for farmers in East Africa

A gender-inclusive approach to community livestock vaccination can help address the different barriers faced by men and women farmers and may increase the uptake of livestock vaccines

Scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) recently published a study on the uptake of the Rift Valley fever vaccine in Kenya and Uganda, incorporating gender in their analysis to better understand the different barriers that men and women farmers face in adopting and using livestock vaccines.

The barriers include the cost of vaccines, long distances to vaccination points, lack of information on vaccination campaigns and decision-making processes at the household level. Understanding these barriers can help veterinary workers design more effective community livestock vaccination programs of benefit to both men and women farmers.

‘Conducting gender analysis on livestock vaccine interventions can enable implementers to identify generic and gender-specific needs of their target beneficiaries’, says Edna Mutua, the lead author of the study and gender consultant at ILRI.

‘This will allow the use of the findings to inform the design and delivery of vaccination interventions to increase efficiency and uptake’, she adds.

Rift Valley fever is a viral, mosquito-borne zoonotic disease that affects cattle, sheep, goats and camels. It causes abortions in livestock and flu-like illness in humans. People can get infected through contact with secretions or tissue of infected animals.

Rift Valley fever is endemic in East Africa and its impacts are significant. An outbreak of the disease in Kenya in 2006–07 caused 150 human deaths and led to losses of USD 32 million from livestock deaths, reduced animal productivity and trade bans on livestock and livestock products.

Vaccination of livestock is currently the most effective measure to control the disease. Previous research on Rift Valley fever vaccines have tended to focus on the production, safety and efficacy of the vaccines. Very few studies have been carried out on the uptake and adoption of livestock vaccines and most of these did not include gender in the study design and analysis but treated male and female livestock farmers as a homogeneous group.

This new ILRI-led study, published in the journal Vaccines (August 2019), provides useful insights into how prevailing gender dynamics in communities such as the division of roles and responsibilities in farmers’ households can influence the uptake and adoption of livestock vaccines.

Uptake was defined as the process the farmers take from when they receive livestock vaccination information to consenting to have their animals vaccinated and presenting the animals for vaccination. Adoption was defined as the continuous use of the vaccine when needed, even without the intervention of veterinary departments.

The study was carried out in Kwale and Murang’a counties in Kenya and Arua and Ibanda districts in Uganda. Data were collected through 58 focus group discussions (30 in Kenya and 28 in Uganda), with 8–12 discussants per group, selected based on whether or not livestock were vaccinated during recent outbreaks of Rift Valley fever.

To incorporate gender into the study design, in each country, half of the focus groups comprised men only and the other half women only. This gender disaggregation enabled the research team to collect data from the different gender groups across all four study locations.

The researchers found that men and women farmers faced different barriers in accessing and using livestock vaccines and that these constraints were influenced by socio-cultural and economic contexts and location.

For all focus groups across the four locations, the farmers ranked the top three barriers to the uptake of livestock vaccines as the cost of vaccines, limited access to information on vaccination and the side effects of the vaccines. However, including the gender and locational differences in the analysis brought forth a clearer picture of which group was most affected by which constraint.

Women in one region, for example, cited the cost of vaccines as the key challenge while women in another cited the limited information available on vaccination campaigns. In one region, the cultural dynamics around livestock ownership were paramount; in another, the long distances the women had to walk their animals to access the vaccination points was key.

The general lesson, however, was the same: ‘Provision of livestock vaccines by veterinary departments does not always guarantee uptake by men and women farmers’, lead author Edna Mutua notes.

Mutua is optimistic that veterinary authorities in Kenya and Uganda will use the research findings to design more effective community vaccination campaigns to prevent and control Rift Valley fever.

‘My hope is that this study serves as an eye-opener to veterinary departments in Kenya and Uganda on the need to integrate gender analysis into their livestock vaccine programs’, she says. ‘Optimizing vaccine uptake requires us to have a better understanding of the local contexts and constraints within which male and female farmers operate’.

This article by Tezira Lore was first published in the ILRI 2019 Annual Report.

Photo credit: A herder with his livestock in Isiolo County, Kenya (ILRI/Dorine Odongo)

 

Two ILRI-affiliated postdoctoral scientists receive Soulsby Fellowships for One Health research

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic that has focused global attention on the interconnectedness of people, animals and the environment and how this links to the spread of zoonotic diseases, two postdoctoral scientists affiliated with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) are among five recipients of this year’s Soulsby Fellowships, awarded to support early career researchers in human or veterinary medicine working on One Health projects. 

One Health can be defined as the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally and globally to attain optimal health for people, animals and the environment.

The two postdoctoral scientists, Lisa Cavalerie from the University of Liverpool and Mark Nanyingi from the University of Liverpool and the University of Nairobi, are collaborators in the One Health Regional Network for the Horn of Africa project, a multidisciplinary international partnership that is working to improve the health and wealth of people in the Horn of Africa through One Health research.

Lisa Cavalerie, a veterinary epidemiologist, will study the benefits and risks of livestock ownership to maternal health in women in Ethiopia. She says: ‘The aim of the study will be to develop sustainable livestock health management to improve both maternal and child health.’

Mark Nanyingi, an infectious disease epidemiologist, will investigate the presence of Rift Valley fever virus in people, livestock and mosquitoes in Kenya. He aims to develop a human-animal integrated surveillance system which will inform national policy- and decision-making in the event of outbreaks. ‘This study will enhance our understanding of the geographical risk, distribution and genetic diversity of the virus,’ says Nanyingi.

We congratulate them on their awards and wish them all the best as they undertake their research projects.

Read more about the Soulsby Foundation and the other 2020 Soulsby Fellows.

Photo credit: Farming scene in the highlands of Ethiopia (ILRI/Apollo Habtamu)

 

Food safety: How can consumers make a difference?

African food systems are dominated by informal markets, typically open-air markets found at designated sites and street corners, which often have poor hygiene and are subject to limited or poor regulation. Occasionally there are calls for these informal markets to be banned, but most consumers depend on them as they are more accessible and affordable than formal markets.

As we celebrate World Food Safety Day on 7 June 2020, it is crucial that governments recognize the importance of better food safety in informal markets. One way to encourage them to take food safety seriously is by harnessing the power of consumer demand.

Foodborne diseases cause a massive health burden and remain a persistent impediment to socio-economic development. The World Health Organization estimates that close to 600 million people fall ill and 420,000 die every year from foodborne diseases worldwide. Children under five years of age make up 125,000 of those deaths.

Africa bears the largest per capita burden of foodborne diseases. Every year, more than 91 million people fall ill and 137,000 lose their lives, a toll comparable to the continent’s losses from major infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

In Ethiopia, as in other developing countries, most consumers buy their food from informal markets, attracted by their low prices, freshness, availability of local products and credit services. However, consumers are concerned about the safety of the food they buy from these markets, and they show this in their purchasing behaviour. Research has found that consumers would pay 5–15% more for safety-assured products.

Furthermore, demand for food safety increases with economic development, rising income, urbanization, increased media coverage and education level. The current COVID-19 pandemic has made consumers more conscious of the safety of the food they buy and eat.

The Government of Ethiopia is working to increase the use of appropriate food safety assurance systems to ensure food quality and safety, but challenges include limited infrastructure and human capacity, such as laboratory facilities and trained personnel. A further challenge is that consumers often cannot detect unsafe food.

In contrast, food products developed for export markets receive considerable attention and are subject to higher standards of food safety. Decision-makers understand that meeting international food quality and safety regulatory requirements is a must for building trust among foreign trading partners.

This success has led to attempts to directly adopt some export food safety approaches for food products marketed in the informal market. However, since the settings are so different these approaches rarely work.

An alternative approach that is showing considerable promise is to harness consumers’ concerns about food safety to create greater demand for safe food. This simple approach requires educating consumers and increasing the awareness and capacity of food retailers and producers.

Urban food markets in Africa: Incentivizing food safety using a pull-push approach is a research project led by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom Department for International Development and the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. It develops and tests a novel but simple and practical approach to improving food safety: building consumer demand for safe food, traders’ ability to deliver it and regulator capacity to support it. It is, in short, a pull-push approach.

For the success of this approach, consumers need to be better informed on safe food including choice, purchase, storage and preparation. In addition, traders and producers need to be supported to develop their capacity to provide safe food and regulators need advice to create an enabling environment.

While regional estimates of the incidence of foodborne diseases are available, less is known at the country level. This project will also provide estimates of the incidence of key foodborne diseases in Ethiopia and provide a better understanding of the cost of foodborne diseases, how these diseases manifest and how they can be controlled.

Food safety is one of the key elements of ILRI’s research portfolio. Our approach to food safety is risk-based, identifying foodborne hazards, generating evidence, developing solutions and building the capacity of policymakers to use risk-based approaches to improve food safety in informal markets.

This feature article for World Food Safety Day was written by Beamlak Tesfaye, a communications officer at ILRI, and Theo Knight-Jones, a senior scientist at ILRI. It was originally published by The Reporter.

Visit the ILRI World Food Safety Day 2020 landing page for more information on our research on food safety in informal markets.

Photo credit: Fruit and vegetables on sale alongside other food items in a local market in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ILRI/Geraldine Klarenberg)

 

Researchers investigate the governance structure of the Nairobi dairy value chain and its influence on food safety

A new study published in Preventive Veterinary Medicine has investigated the governance structure of the Nairobi dairy value chain and the challenges faced by stakeholders and how these impact on food safety.

The dairy value chain of Nairobi consists mostly of small-scale independent enterprises that operate within a complex interlinked system. In this complexity, the coordination and power structures of the system may have major influences on the management of dairy food safety.

The study was carried out by a team of 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 as part of a research project on the epidemiology, ecology and socio-economics of disease emergence in Nairobi.

The researchers collected qualitative data through focus group discussions and key informant interviews based on a dairy value chain mapping framework previously developed. Thematic analysis enabled identification of governance themes, key challenges and analysis of their implications on food safety. Themes were organized depending on their association with farmers (informal settlement or peri-urban), dairy cooperatives, dairy traders, processing companies, retailers or government officers.

The identified governance themes included (i) weak linkage between government and farmers, (ii) inadequate compliance with government regulations by traders and retailers, (iii) emphasis on business licenses and permits for revenue rather than for food safety, (iv) multiple licensing resulting in high business cost and lack of compliance, (v) fragmented regulation, (vi) unfair competition and (vii) sanctions that do not always result in compliance.

The key challenges identified included (i) inadequate farmer support, (ii) harassment of traders and retailers and (iii) high business costs for traders, retailers, dairy cooperatives and large processors.

The implication of governance and challenges of food safety were, among others, (i) inadequate extension services, (ii) insufficient cold chain, (iii) delivery of adulterated and low milk quality to bulking centres, (iv) inadequate food safety training and (v) lack of policies for management of waste milk.

The range of issues highlighted is based on stakeholders’ perceptions and reflects the complexity of the relationships between them. Many of the governance themes demonstrate the linkages that are both beneficial or confrontational between the formal and informal sectors, and between industry and regulatory authorities, with possible direct food safety consequences.

The findings of the study give indications to decision-makers of potential governance areas that could help improve efficiency and food safety along the dairy value chain.

Citation
Kiambi, S., Onono, J.O., Kang’ethe, E., Aboge, G.O., Murungi, M.K., Muinde, P., Akoko, J., Momanyi, K., Rushton, J., Fèvre, E.M. and Alarcon, P. 2020. Investigation of the governance structure of the Nairobi dairy value chain and its influence on food safety. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 179: 105009.

Photo credit: Customers at a milk bar in Ndumbuini in Kabete, Nairobi (ILRI/Paul Karaimu)

 

Expert review examines impact of mycotoxins on dairy cattle health in sub-Saharan Africa

In sub-Saharan Africa, contamination of dairy feed with mycotoxins has been frequently reported. Mycotoxins pose a threat to animal health and productivity and are a hazard to human health as some mycotoxins and their metabolites are excreted in milk, such as aflatoxin M1.

A new review paper published in the journal Toxins (April 2020) describes the major mycotoxins, their occurrence and their impact in dairy cattle diets in sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the problems related to animal health, productivity and food safety and the latest post-harvest mitigation strategies to prevent and reduce contamination of dairy feed with mycotoxins.

Citation
Kemboi, D.C., Antonissen, G., Ochieng, P.E., Croubels, S., Okoth, S., Kang’ethe, E.K., Faas, J., Lindahl, J.F. and Gathumbi, J.K. 2020. A review of the impact of mycotoxins on dairy cattle health: Challenges for food safety and dairy production in sub-Saharan Africa. Toxins 12(4): 222.

Photo credit: Maize crop, Pacassa village, Tete province, Mozambique (ILRI/Mann)

 

Lessons on tackling the growing risk of emerging infectious diseases in Africa

As part of a special COVID-19 series by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Bernard Bett and Delia Randolph of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and John McDermott of IFPRI write on the growing risk in Africa of pathogens that spread from animals to people and how we can learn from past epidemics to improve preparedness and response.

In their article, the scientists discuss the evolving patterns of emergence and spread of zoonotic pathogens, factors that might influence the spread of emerging zoonotic pathogens and the opportunities for controlling emerging infectious diseases in Africa. 

They write: “The record thus far on COVID-19 and on past disease outbreaks shows that early, effective and sustained response is essential to winning the battle over these diseases. Innovative use of information and communication tools and platforms and engagement of local communities are crucial to improved disease surveillance and effective response. Building these systems requires demand from the public and commitment from policymakers and investors.” 

Read the full article, Africa’s growing risk of diseases that spread from animals to people, originally posted on the IFPRI website.

Bernard Bett is a senior scientist with ILRI’s Animal and Human Health program, Delia Randolph is the co-leader of ILRI’s Animal and Human Health program and John McDermott is the director of the CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health. The analysis and opinions expressed in the article are of the authors alone.

Photo credit: Cows walk along an irrigation canal in Niolo, Mali (ILRI/Mann)

 

New study identifies factors affecting spread of brucellosis in humans and livestock in northeastern Kenya

Brucellosis is an important zoonotic disease that affects wildlife and livestock. People may get exposed to the disease through direct contact with an infected animal or consumption of raw or undercooked animal products. In humans, the disease is characterized by prolonged fever, body aches, joint pains and weakness, while in livestock, it mainly causes abortions and infertility. 

A study carried out in Garissa and Tana River counties of Kenya set out to identify the factors that affect the spread of brucellosis in people and livestock. Livestock and people from randomly selected households were recruited and serum samples were obtained and screened for Brucella antibodies to determine the level of exposure to Brucella spp. 

The study found that the chances of exposure to brucellosis in humans were at least three times higher in households that had at least one Brucella-seropositive animal compared to those that had none. 

This finding can be used to design risk-based surveillance systems for brucellosis, based on the locations of the primary cases of the disease, where each case of Brucella infection identified in livestock could signal potential locations of additional brucellosis cases in humans, and vice versa.

Citation

Kairu-Wanyoike, S., Nyamwaya, D., Wainaina, M., Lindahl, J., Ontiri, E., Bukachi, S., Njeru, I., Karanja, J., Sang, R., Grace, D. and Bett, B. 2019. Positive association between Brucella spp. seroprevalences in livestock and humans from a cross-sectional study in Garissa and Tana River Counties, Kenya. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 13(10): e0007506.

Photo credit: Boran women with sheep and goats at a traditional deep well water source, Garba Tulla, Isiolo, Kenya (ILRI/Fiona Flintan)

 

ILRI researchers propose traceability system for Kenya’s smallholder pig value chain

A traceability system in the smallholder pig value chain in Kenya could help address challenges related to production, diseases, markets, pork safety and public health, according to a new study published by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

Currently, Kenya does not have an operational livestock traceability system. Although a few systems have been piloted, these have only focused on the beef value chain and mostly in pastoralist areas. The smallholder pig value chain is suitable for the implementation of a traceability system as farmers usually keep a few pigs at a time and rely on a short marketing chain that is less complex.

The study, published in Tropical Animal Health and Production (16 Sep 2019), was based on a review of literature on pork traceability as well as on pig production in Kenya, with a focus on smallholder pig systems in western Kenya. Combined with the authors’ research experience in the region, the findings were used to inform the design of a traceability system for the smallholder pig value chain. 

Unique identification of animals is important for traceability. However, the review found that locally raised pigs were rarely identified. Farmers need to be made aware of the importance of identifying animals and recording their movements and how this can improve access to markets.

The study explains how a traceability system could support the surveillance of two important pig diseases in the region: African swine fever and porcine cysticercosis.

An effective traceability system could also enable the withdrawal of unsafe pork from the market, thereby helping to ensure the quality and safety of pork sold in local markets.

“Since meat inspection in the country has now been taken up by the county governments, we see traceability as an option that counties, in partnership with the private sector, could use to market themselves as producers of ‘safe and traceable’ pork”, the authors say. 

Starting with organized systems like commercial producer and trader groups, the concept can be piloted in the field to assess its practical application, paving the way for a national traceability system in line with the guidelines of the World Organisation for Animal Health. 

The authors of the study note, however, that implementing traceability as a tool towards improved animal health and food safety would require the participation of all stakeholders in the value chain. Therefore, appropriate incentives would need to be explored to ensure widespread adoption of the intervention.

Citation

Mutua, F., Lindahl, J. and Randolph, D. 2019. Possibilities of establishing a smallholder pig identification and traceability system in Kenya. Tropical Animal Health and Production. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-019-02077-9 

Photo credit: A plate served with fried pork and raw relishes (ILRI/Martin Heilmann)

 

Researchers call for a gendered approach in strategies for community uptake of livestock vaccines

The design of strategies for uptake of livestock vaccines by communities in East Africa should take into account that male and female farmers face different barriers in the uptake of the vaccines, a new research study says.

These barriers include the cost of the vaccines, distances to vaccination points, access to information on vaccination campaigns and decision-making processes at household level. Some constraints affect both men and women while others affect one gender group only, based on prevailing gender norms and division of labour.

The study, published in the journal Vaccines (8 Aug 2019), was undertaken by a team of scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute, Uganda’s Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries and the United States Agency for International Development Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

The work was carried out in purposively selected sites, namely, Kwale and Murang’a counties in Kenya and Arua and Ibanda districts in Uganda. The sites in Kenya were selected because livestock there had recently been vaccinated against Rift Valley fever while the sites in Uganda were chosen because they had experienced recent outbreaks of the disease but no vaccination was carried out. Data were collected through 58 focus group discussions (30 in Kenya and 28 in Uganda), with 8–12 discussants per group.

The researchers found that women in Kwale experienced more difficulties than their male counterparts in accessing information on vaccination campaigns while women in Ibanda had limited decision-making capacity over the management and control of livestock diseases because of culturally defined livestock ownership patterns. 

The cost of vaccines was a greater barrier for men than for women because the role of managing and controlling livestock diseases in these communities was culturally ascribed to men.

To be effective, therefore, livestock vaccination campaigns need to consider the socio-cultural gender dynamics that exist at household and community level. It is not enough to merely provide vaccines to the community during mass campaigns.

“Availability of vaccines does not guarantee uptake at community level due to social, spatial, economic and vaccine safety and efficacy barriers faced by men and women farmers,” the researchers note.

They add, “Vaccine uptake is a complex process which requires buy-in from men and women farmers, veterinary departments, county/district governments, national governments and vaccine producers”.

Citation

Mutua, E., Haan, N. de, Tumusiime, D., Jost, C. and Bett, B. 2019. A qualitative study on gendered barriers to livestock vaccine uptake in Kenya and Uganda and their implications on Rift Valley fever control. Vaccines 7(3): 86.

Photo credit: A herder with his livestock in Isiolo County, Kenya (ILRI/Dorine Odongo)

 

New study finds that urban wildlife may be a significant vector for antimicrobial resistant bacteria

Researchers entering sampling data (photo credit: Zoonoses and Emerging Diseases).

In the cities of developing nations, where unregulated antibiotic use is common and livestock jostle with people amid often unsanitary conditions, scientists have found a potentially troubling vector for the dissemination of antimicrobial resistant bacteria: wildlife.

The epidemiological study published in the June 2019 issue of the journal Lancet Planetary Health shows that urban wildlife in Nairobi carry a high burden of clinically relevant antimicrobial resistant bacteria. The research team included scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the University of Liverpool and the Kenya Medical Research Institute, among other research institutions.

Antimicrobial resistance is an increasingly serious threat to public health. Through misuse and overuse of antibacterial medication, more and more of the bacterial diseases that were once easily treated with antibiotics have become drug-resistant; these new strains of old germs require expensive and prolonged treatment at best and at worst can be lethal.

The study deployed teams of veterinary, medical, environmental and wildlife personnel to sample 99 households randomly chosen from Nairobi’s socio-economically diverse neighbourhoods.

The study found higher diversity of antimicrobial resistance in livestock and the environment than humans and wildlife. Rodents and birds were significantly more likely to carry resistance to multiple drugs when exposed to human and livestock waste through poor management practices, a common feature of lower-income neighbourhoods.

“This paper shows that contamination of urban environments with antimicrobial resistance is a serious issue. This is not just specific to Nairobi but findings can be extrapolated to other cities in Africa,” said Eric Fèvre, a joint appointed scientist at ILRI and professor of veterinary infectious diseases at the University of Liverpool.

“We tend to think of antimicrobial resistance in primarily medical terms, of developing new drugs and better using old ones. But we need to take an ecological approach to addressing this threat. Urban cities can address this by better urban planning, better waste disposal, better livestock husbandry practices. This can go far toward disrupting antimicrobial resistance exchange between wildlife, livestock and humans,” said Fèvre.

The lead author of the study, James Hassell, said, “Although we found no evidence to suggest that antimicrobial resistance carried by urban wildlife poses a direct threat to human health, that these animals harbour high levels of resistance to drugs used in human and animal medicine is particularly worrisome. Since wildlife are not treated with antibiotics, this is indicative of how pervasive antimicrobial resistance is in urban environments. Species that move freely across cities and further afield could disseminate resistance acquired in urban areas more widely.”

“We cannot address the rise of antimicrobial resistance without focusing on the environmental, ecological and social settings in which humans exist,” said Hassell.

Citation

Hassell, J.M., Ward, M.J., Muloi, D., Bettridge, J.M., Robinson, T.P., Kariuki, S., Ogendo, A., Kiiru, J., Imboma, T., Kang’ethe, E.K., Öghren, E.M., Williams, N.J., Begon, M., Woolhouse, M.E.J. and Fèvre, E.M. 2019. Clinically relevant antimicrobial resistance at the wildlife–livestock–human interface in Nairobi: An epidemiological study. Lancet Planetary Health 3(6): e259–e269.