Animal Health and human welfare

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Animal Health and human welfare

• Presentation in IFAH-Europe conference on
  innovation in the animal health industry
• Crowne Plaza Brussels Europa Hotel
• 28th June 2006
• Nimaya Mogga
• VSF-Belgium southern Sudan

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Introduction

• Pastoralists and agropastoralists depends on
  livestock for their livelihoods
• 25 million in Africa, 16.5 million in horn (1998)
• live in remote areas with poor infrastructure,
  harsh environments (not suitable for crop
  production).
• Seasonal mobility in search of grazing and water.
  

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Livestock benefits

• milk, blood and meat
• reserve (bank) and security
• social functions bride prices prestige
• hides and skins for clothing and shelter.
• manure for crop production
• draught animals
• Revenue and barter

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Threats to pastoral livelihoods.

• Livestock diseases (rinderpest)
• Natural and man made problems (droughts wars)
• Marginalisation
• -no infrastructure
• -poor animal and human health services
• Harsh climatic conditions

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Family lost herd to MCF Southern Sudan
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Disease investigation team in S S
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Animal health innovations

• community based animal health to deliver to
  treatment, vaccination, disease surveillance
• use of thermostable RP vaccine
• use of appropriate therapeutics (long acting
  antibiotics and anthelmintics
• field based diagnostic kits (penside test for RP)
• sample collection methods (filter papers)
• Participatory Epidemiology (PE), Participatory
  Disease Searches (PDS) and community dialogue
  (CD)

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Approach

• Community dialogue to encourage participation and
  acceptance
• Training livestock owners as livestock health and
  information providers
• PE and PDS for disease surveillance and
  Epidemiology
• Use thermostable vaccine
• Penside screening test and filter paper

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CAHW preparing a vaccine
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CAHW making an injection
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Rinderpest thermostable vaccine

• Used Uganda, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia and Sudan
• Coverage 31 in southern Sudan
• Efficiency (sero-conversion)
• - 86 in Fulani people in Cameroon
• - Over 80 in Afar people in Ethiopia
• - 76 in Southern Sudan

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Impact

• Sudan officially declared free from rinderpest
  disease status
• marketing livestock to other areas with less
  restrictions resulting in increased value of
  livestock
• increased milk production
• decreased mortality
• experience and lessons learned to control other
  diseases

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Impact cont.

• increased food and livelihood security.
• access vaccine and pharmaceuticals
• surveillance coverage improved with the use of
  CAHWs and PE to obtain information
• Focus can shift from rinderpest to other
  important livestock diseases

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Impact
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Challenges

• lack of government policy on pastoral production
  systems
• acceptance and recognition of the CAH and PE by
  livestock professionals.
• lack of appropriate vaccines and therapeutics for
  use by paraprofessionals in remote locations with
  poor infrastructure e.g. for diseases such as
  CBPP, FMD and East Coast Fever

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Challenges cont.

• lack of locally-accessible diagnostic support for
  disease control in pastoralist areas e.g. FMD
  typing to choose appropriate vaccines.
• lack of control methods and tools for certain
  common diseases in pastoral production system
  such as Brucellosis.

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recommendations

• governments in Africa should be supported to
  develop improved policies and structures and to
  develop a research agenda that addresses the
  needs of pastoralist production systems,
• research needs to be carried out to develop
  simple field-based diagnostic and sample
  collection techniques scientifically recognized
  e.g. for CBPP,

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recommendations

• vaccines and therapeutic drugs need to be
  developed that can be handled easily and safely
  by less skilled personnel and in field conditions
  where infrastructure is least developed,
• there should be more research to better
  understand the epidemiology of livestock diseases
  in pastoral management systems, leading to more
  appropriate control strategies.

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End and thanks for attention