Cattle fever
vaccine by Mwangi Mumero
Researchers at the Nairobi-based
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in collaboration with global
partners have developed a vaccine to control malignant catarrhal fever (MCF), a
fatal disease passed from wildebeest to cattle and sheep.
While the world has its
eyes focused on the annual wildlife migration in the Maasai Mara Game reserve,
livestock herders are forced to move their animals to prevent them from getting
this deadly disease.
The virus is transmitted
to cattle during the wildebeest calving season.
This causes a dilemma for the Maasai pastoralists.
If they move their cattle to avoid the wildebeests, they incur
costs from lost opportunities to consume and sell milk and meat, and the labour
input needed to move the cattle.
If they stay in the wildebeest grazing zones, they are at risk
of losing approximately 10 percent of animals from their herds, which
represents a significant loss to their livelihoods.
The vaccine has shown to
offer a safe and effective method of protecting cattle against the disease with
a vaccine efficacy of 80 percent.
Researchers from a
number of organisations came together at the Kapiti Research Station located in
Machakos County, Kenya.
The 13,000-hectare
research station has approximately 2,500 cattle, 1,200 sheep and 250 goats
coexisting with wildlife including wildebeests, giraffe and zebra as well as
lions, hyenas and cheetahs.
The unique mix of
livestock and wildlife at the research facility enables scientists to test the
dynamics of disease transmission at the wildlife-livestock interface, which is
a critical step towards understanding the ecology of livestock diseases.
Five years ago, a severe
outbreak of the disease at ILRI’s Kapiti Research Station as well as in the
plains of Maasai Mara highlighted the economic impact of the disease and the
need for an effective control measure.
“We are happy with the
result of the trail which show the vaccine is safe and effective for
controlling the disease in cattle”, observed Dr. Elizabeth Cook, a scientist at
ILRI and the lead author of the study.
Dr. Cook however notes
that current limitation to the roll out of the vaccine is that it is produced
on small scale for research purposes only. A partner to scale up production and
marketing of the vaccine in both Kenya and Tanzania is being sought, according
to the researcher.
Funding for the research
work came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Aid. (Ends).
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