New study recommends continued research on the possible role pigs could play in transmitting Ebola in Uganda

ILRI news

The map above shows high-risk areas due to a spatial overlap of three proposed risk factors for zoonotic Ebola virus transmission in Uganda: modelled zoonotic niche, domestic pig distribution and high numbers of people living in extreme poverty; the map is taken from a paper published in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, Assessing the potential role of pigs in the epidemiology of Ebola virus in Uganda, by C Atherstone, E Smith, P Ochungo, K Roesel, D Grace, 27 August 2015 (figure credit: ILRI).

This article is written by two of this paper’s authors: Christine Atherstone, an ILRI researcher based in Uganda who leads this work and is lead author, and Delia Grace, who leads ILRI’s Food Safety and Zoonoses research program.

A new risk assessment paper, Assessing the potential role of pigs in the epidemiology of the Ebola virus in Uganda, was published in the science journal

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New ILRI study finds high levels of aflatoxin in milk and dairy feeds in Greater Addis Ababa milk shed

Aflatoxins are highly toxic fungal by-products produced by certain strains of Aspergillus fungi in more than 40 susceptible crops including maize and groundnuts. Aflatoxins can be separated into aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2.

When ingested, aflatoxin B1 is metabolized to aflatoxin M1 which is secreted into milk. Aflatoxin B1 is particularly important because it has been found in most foods and animal feeds and is highly carcinogenic.

Aflatoxins cause around 90,000 cases of liver cancer each year and are strongly associated with stunting and immune suppression in children. Aflatoxins in contaminated animal feed can lead to reduced animal productivity. They can end up in products like milk, meat and eggs, thus presenting a health risk to humans, with children being particularly susceptible.

In Ethiopia, previous studies have investigated aflatoxin contamination in staple cereals, red chili pepper and ground peas. Now, a new research study published in the journal Food Control (6 July 2015) has, for the first time, documented aflatoxin contamination in milk and dairy feeds in Ethiopia and the results show that milk and dairy feeds in the Greater Addis Ababa milk shed are highly contaminated with aflatoxins.

The cross-sectional study by scientists from the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) was carried out in the Greater Addis Ababa milk shed between September 2014 and February 2015 in order to detect and quantify the levels of aflatoxin M1 in samples of raw cow’s milk and aflatoxin B1 in samples of dairy feed.

The Greater Addis Ababa milk shed was selected because it is a rapidly intensifying system where aflatoxins are likely to be an increasing problem. A value chain approach was used, whereby production, processing and marketing of dairy feeds and milk were examined, as well as milk sold to consumers in Addis Ababa.

A total of 110 milk samples (100 from dairy farmers and 10 from milk traders) and 156 dairy feed samples (114 from farmers and 42 from feed producers, processors and traders) were collected and analysed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The study analysed all the commonly used dairy feeds such as mixed concentrate feed, brewery by-products, maize grain, pea hulls and silage. The most common ingredients in concentrate feeds were wheat bran, noug cake, pea hulls and maize grain.

All the milk samples were found to be contaminated with aflatoxin M1. Over 90% of the milk samples contained aflatoxin M1 levels that exceeded the European Union limit of 0.05 micrograms per litre. Out of a total of 110 milk samples, only nine contained aflatoxin M1 levels below 0.05 micrograms per litre.

Similarly, all the feed samples were contaminated with aflatoxin B1, with levels ranging from 7 to 419 micrograms per kilogram. Along the value chain from farmers to feed manufacturers and traders, the levels of aflatoxin contamination were fairly similar.

Out of a total of 156 dairy feed samples, only 16 contained aflatoxin B1 at a level less than or equal to 10 micrograms per kilogram. At the same time, 41 feed samples contained aflatoxin B1 at levels exceeding 100 micrograms per kilogram.

There was a significant association between aflatoxin B1 contamination in concentrate feeds and the presence of noug cake in the feed.

Noug (Guizotia abyssinica or Niger seed) is an oilseed crop that is indigenous to Ethiopia. Noug seed is pressed to produce noug oil while the remaining noug cake is sold as animal feed to feed processors and dairy farmers. Noug cake is becoming increasingly popular among dairy farmers in Ethiopia because its high nutrient content increases animal productivity.

Noug cakes were found to be highly contaminated with aflatoxin B1 (290–397 micrograms per kilogram) while the other feed components (wheat bran, maize grain and Brewer’s dry yeast) had relatively low levels of aflatoxin.

For this reason, the authors of the study recommend that further research on aflatoxin risk mitigation should focus on noug cake so as to effectively reduce the risk of aflatoxin contamination in peri-urban and urban dairy value chains in Ethiopia. Risk assessment of aflatoxins in noug seed and its by-products in other food chains should also be carried out.

In addition, there is an overall need to increase awareness of aflatoxins and to support risk mitigation practices along the entire dairy value chain.

“Policymakers and development organization need to support the dissemination of information about good agricultural and storage practices and other simple risk-reduction measures,” the authors conclude.

Citation
Gizachew D, Szonyi B, Tegegne A, Hanson J and Grace D. Aflatoxin contamination of milk and dairy feeds in the Greater Addis Ababa milk shed, Ethiopia. Food Control 59(2016): 773-779.

You may download a 4-page brief of the research article at http://hdl.handle.net/10568/67116

 

A4NH 2014 annual report highlights ILRI book on food safety research

The CGIAR Research Program on Agriculture for Nutrition and Health (A4NH) led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) last week (4 June) published its 2014 annual report, marking three full years of its first phase of research.

The report highlights a range of research work by the program’s flagships, including the delivery of biofortified crops, work on aflatoxin control and the development of a new global indicator to measure women’s dietary diversity.

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) leads the A4NH flagship on agriculture-associated diseases. The annual report features a key output of this flagship, namely, a new book, Food Safety and Informal Markets: Animal Products in Sub-Saharan Africa, published in October 2014.

Edited by ILRI researchers Kristina Roesel and Delia Grace, the book synthesizes lessons from 10 years of food safety research in Africa, including 25 case studies from countries in East, West and Southern Africa, as part of the Safe Food, Fair Food project.

 

Europe Day 2015 celebrations feature aflatoxin research by Finland-funded FoodAfrica program

Harvested maize in Tete Province, Mozambique (photo credit: ILRI/Stevie Mann).

 

As part of celebrations in Nairobi last week to mark Europe Day 2015, the Finland-funded FoodAfrica program took part in an exhibition at the residence of the European Union Delegation to the Republic of Kenya where several project outputs were showcased.

FoodAfrica is a research and development program aimed at providing new knowledge and tools for researchers, decision-makers and farmers towards improved local food security. The program works in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Uganda.

Sara Ahlberg, a Finnish associate professional officer and PhD student attached to the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, presented a poster that highlighted research approaches by the FoodAfrica program to reduce the risk of mycotoxins in the feed-dairy value chain in Kenya, namely,

• Integrated risk and economic assessment of the Kenyan feed-dairy chain
• Investigation of technologies and strategies to reduce mycotoxin risk in the feed-dairy chain
• Impact assessment of a package of post-harvest strategies for reducing aflatoxins in maize

View the poster, FoodAfrica – Reducing risk of mycotoxins

 

Study explores effect of land use and biodiversity changes on risk of zoonoses in Tana River County, Kenya

Orma Boran cattle crossing a river in Kenya (photo credit: ILRI/Rosemary Dolan).

The Dynamic Drivers of Disease in Africa Consortium is a research program that works to understand the relationships between ecosystems, zoonotic diseases, health and wellbeing in order to inform effective public health interventions.

Under this program, multidisciplinary country teams are studying four zoonotic diseases: henipavirus infection in Ghana, Lassa fever in Sierra Leone, Rift Valley fever in Kenya and trypanosomiasis in Zambia and Zimbabwe. The focus is on how changes in biodiversity, land use and climate affect disease transmission.

The development of irrigation schemes is thought to influence pathogen transmission in people and animals in several ways. For example, masses of stagnant water and high humidity support the development of disease vectors like mosquitoes. In addition, irrigated areas are likely to have a higher density of animal hosts like chicken and small ruminants.

In order to investigate the influence of irrigation and changes in biodiversity on the distribution of zoonoses, a cross-sectional study was carried out in Tana River County, Kenya, home to the Hola Irrigation Scheme. The zoonoses of interest were Rift Valley fever, Q fever, brucellosis, West Nile virus, dengue fever and leptospirosis.

Irrigation causes a decline in biodiversity as wildlife habitats are cleared to make way for crop agriculture. However, the linkages between biodiversity and disease risk remain unclear. It was also found that areas with a rich diversity of hosts have higher prevalence of multiple zoonotic pathogens as compared to areas with lower host diversity.

The study also found that while irrigated areas are infested with multiple species of mosquitoes (including primary vectors of Rift Valley fever), their high population densities alone are not enough to sustain the transmission of pathogens; reservoir hosts (for example, birds for West Nile virus) or other persistence mechanisms are required.

These and other findings from the study were presented at the 49th annual scientific conference of the Kenya Veterinary Association which was held in April 2015.

View the presentation, Land use, biodiversity changes and the risk of zoonotic diseases: Findings from a cross-sectional study in Tana River County, Kenya

 

BecA-ILRI Hub hosts aflatoxin research platform towards safe food and feed in Africa

Aflatoxin-contaminated groundnut kernels from Mozambique (photo credit: IITA).

Among the many research projects carried out by the Food Safety and Zoonoses program of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is one that aims to reduce the risk of mycotoxins in the feed-dairy value chain in Kenya so as to improve food safety and safeguard the health of consumers of maize and dairy products.

The project is developing cost-effective and incentive-based mycotoxin control strategies and solutions for use by poor farmers and other actors within the feed-dairy chain.

Mycotoxins are poisonous metabolites produced by various species of moulds. 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 growth conditions of high temperature and moisture content.

The main activities of the project are:

• risk assessment of the Kenyan feed-dairy chain to identify the best control options and provide risk managers with information for decision-making
• assessment of the economic costs of aflatoxins in Kenya’s dairy value chain and examination of the cost effectiveness of mitigation strategies
• investigation of technologies and strategies to reduce mycotoxins risk in the feed-dairy chain
• impact assessment of a package of post-harvest strategies for reducing aflatoxins in maize
• dissemination of evidence and building capacity of local researchers and postgraduate students through participation in designing surveys, fieldwork and data analysis

The project also applies participatory methods to develop and test strategies to mitigate the risk of mycotoxins in the feed-dairy chain.

These participatory methods engage farmers in action research on their fields so they can learn and adopt new technologies and disseminate the knowledge to other farmers.

The project is hosted in the aflatoxin research platform of the Biosciences eastern and central Africa (BecA) Hub at ILRI’s headquarters in Nairobi. The platform was set up to provide African scientists and their research partners access to state-of-the-art facilities for nutritional and aflatoxin analysis.

The February 2015 issue of the Aflatoxin Partnership Newsletter, published by the Partnership for Aflatoxin Control in Africa, highlights the aflatoxin platform in an article by Jagger Harvey, a senior scientist at the BecA-ILRI Hub.

Since its establishment in 2011, the platform has hosted work of more than 60 researchers from seven African countries, Australia, Europe and North America,” writes Harvey.

“Collectively, the community around the laboratory has made initial assessments of aflatoxin contamination in a number of countries, conducted the first inoculated field trials in the region to identify maize varieties less susceptible to aflatoxin accumulation, developed models estimating aflatoxin risk at harvest and produced a range of other important findings and tools which are beginning to reach end users to help ensure safer food and feed for Africa”.

 

Uganda pig feed trials show benefits of local feed solutions

CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish

Research assistants chopping jackfruit (left) and weighing a feed trial pig (right) at Kamuzinda Farm, Uganda (photo credit: ILRI/Natalie Carter).

Pig production in Uganda is on the rise. The number of pigs in the country stood at 3.2 million in 2011 (based on a livestock census) from about 200,000 thirty years ago. A rise in the country’s population and incomes has triggered an upsurge in pork consumption. The per capita pork consumption of Uganda was 3.4 kg per person per annum in 2011, the highest in the East Africa region. Most of the pork consumed in the country is supplied by smallholder producers in over 1 million households, with women playing a central role in pig farming.

These figures, however, disguise challenges in the sector including diseases and parasites, unreliable markets, inadequate extension services and most importantly, poor quality and unavailability of pig feeds.

A 2013 value chain assessment conducted by the International…

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New ILRI report reviews the use of a Rift Valley fever decision support tool in Kenya

Orma Boran cattle crossing a river in Kenya. Rift Valley fever can infect both cattle and people (photo credit: ILRI /Rosemary Dolan).

The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) has published a discussion paper on a study carried out to identify the successes and challenges associated with the use of a Rift Valley fever decision support tool in Kenya.

The decision support tool was developed by various stakeholders from government and non-government sectors following the 2006-07 outbreak of Rift Valley fever in East Africa. It identifies events leading to the disease outbreak and matches them with interventions that could be implemented at each point.

The study involved three activities:

• a review of literature to describe systems that could be used with the decision support tool and to identify how other frameworks have been used to support disease control policies
• focus group discussions and key informant interviews with farmer groups, local and international organizations and decision-makers in the Department of Veterinary Services
• a stakeholder workshop to validate the findings obtained and develop recommendations on ways to improve awareness and utilization of the framework

Download the discussion paper

Citation
Mbotha, D. and Bett, B. 2015. Utilization of the Rift Valley fever decision support tool in Kenya: Successes and challenges. ILRI Discussion Paper 28. Nairobi, Kenya: ILRI.

 

New book presents research findings on food safety in Africa’s traditional meat, milk and fish markets

Animal products – meat, milk, eggs and fish – are vital components of the diets and livelihoods of people across sub-Saharan Africa. However, these nutritious food products are also the most risky. Most food-borne disease is caused by perishable foods: meat, milk, fish, eggs, fruits and vegetables.

Food borne-disease can be serious. In a minority of cases, it can cause epilepsy, paralysis, kidney failure and death. In addition, the global economic burden of food-borne disease is significant. Annually, food-borne disease is estimated to cost US$78 billion in the United States of America, US$14 billion in China and US$3 billion in Nigeria.

Over 80% of the meat, milk, eggs and fish produced in developing countries is sold in traditional or informal markets. These markets are accessible, sell affordable food and provide market access to small-scale farmers. However, informal markets often lack adequate refrigeration, inspection and control of food-borne disease.

For over a decade, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners have been conducting research on food safety in informal markets to support intensifying livestock production by building capacity for better management of the safety of animal food products.

A newly published book launched two weeks ago (27 Jan 2015) at ILRI’s Nairobi headquarters presents a review of food safety in informal markets and 25 case studies of the meat, milk and fish sectors in eight countries in East, West and southern Africa, as part of the Safe Food, Fair Food project.

A key finding from the book is that in low-income countries it is important to distinguish between the potential food-borne hazards (such as harmful bacteria, chemicals and toxins) and the actual risks they are likely to present to consumers.

For example, data from East Africa show that although the raw milk available from street vendors and traditional markets may contain many health hazards, the actual risks to consumers may be negligible due to the common practice of boiling milk before consuming it.

“Food safety policy should be guided by rigorous research to understand the ways food is produced and consumed in different societies so we can devise strategies that are most likely to reduce the risks, particularly to poor consumers,” said Kristina Roesel, coordinator of the Safe Food, Fair Food project.

“Improving food safety in informal markets will require policies that are guided by an understanding of producer and consumer behaviour, local diets and customs, and interventions that can reduce illness without imperilling food security or increasing poverty,” said Delia Grace, program leader for food safety at ILRI.

Download the book, Food Safety and Informal Markets: Animal Products in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Kristina Roesel and Delia Grace.

 

Despite contamination concerns, Africa must embrace ‘wet markets’ as key to food security

ILRI news

At the Xipamamime traditional market, in Maputo, trader Augusta Thomas sells chickens (photo credit: ILRI/Mann).

A new compilation of 25 studies in Africa finds that informal markets provide essential sources of food and income for millions of poor, with milk and meat that is often safer than supermarkets.

Misguided efforts to control the alarming burden of food-related illnesses in low-income countries risk intensifying malnutrition and poverty — while doing little to improve food safety. Blunt crack-downs on informal milk and meat sellers that are a critical source of food and income for millions of people are not the solution.

That’s a key finding of a new book released today by the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and partners — Food Safety and Informal Markets: Animal Products in Sub-Saharan Africa—that probes the complicated world of traditional or ‘informal’ markets in livestock products. These are often called ‘wet’ markets because they use so much water in cleaning due…

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