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Towards better control and prevention of Rift Valley fever in the Greater Horn of Africa: a decision support tool for veterinary services

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Title Towards better control and prevention of Rift Valley fever in the Greater Horn of Africa: a decision support tool for veterinary services
 
Creator Jost, Christine
Sones, Keith R.
Bett, Bernard K.
Kihu, S.
Nzietchueng, S.
Njogu, G.
Swai, E.
Minjauw, B.
Amanfu, W.
Rocque, S. de la
Martin, V.
Mariner, Jeffrey C.
 
Subject RIFT VALLEY FEVER VIRUS
ANIMAL DISEASES
HORN OF AFRICA
DISEASE CONTROL
 
Description An outbreak of the viral zoonotic disease Rift Valley fever in East Africa in
2006/07 left more than 300 people dead and caused economic losses in Kenya
alone estimated to exceed USD 30 million. Participatory studies undertaken
shortly after the outbreaks abated enabled valuable lessons to be learned; if
applied these lessons could significantly reduce the impact of future outbreaks.
The lessons included the desirability of complementing and integrating
international early warning systems with information from local people on the
ground; the need for government-approved contingency plans and emergency
funding arrangement to be in place; the need to initiate responses before the
first human cases are detected; the difficulties of mounting effective livestock
vaccination campaigns; and the need for clear, consistent and authoritative
public health messages to be developed and tested well before an outbreak
occurs.
To address these issues, FAO and ILRI recently led a multi-stakeholder initiative
to develop a decision support tool for the prevention and control of RVF in the
Greater Horn of Africa. The tool is targeted at directors of veterinary services.
The RVF outbreak is divided into a sequence made up of 12 key events: for each
event a set of actions are listed that are considered appropriate at that stage.
The tool is intended to facilitate timely, evidence-based decision-making that will
enable RVF outbreaks to be better prevented or contained, thereby reducing the
scale of impacts on lives and livelihoods as well as local, national and regional
economies.
In September 2008, FAO EMPRES warned that RVF could occur again in East
Africa later that year. This early warning and the veterinary department’s
reaction in Kenya, highlight two encouraging changes. First, the early warning
was issued in September, two months earlier than in 2006. Second, the
veterinary department immediately established an interdisciplinary, multistakeholder
technical coordinating committee. Actions taken, informed by the
new decision support tool for the prevention and control of RVF, included drafting
of protocols for vaccination, livestock quarantine and vector control. The
veterinary department had a limited stock of vaccine in hand, which it targeted
to what it considered the highest risk areas. However, taking into consideration
production and shipment delays, should these limited vaccination campaigns
have had to be expanded it is unlikely that a sufficient level of population
immunity from mass vaccination in high risk areas could have been achieved
prior to mid-November, the time when suspected livestock cases were occurring
in North Eastern Province in 2006. ILRI and partners are engaging in further
research to determine what impacts the RVF Decision Support Tool had on
Kenya’s 2008 response.
 
Date 2010-04-13T21:10:45Z
2010-04-13T21:10:45Z
2009-08-10
 
Type Conference Paper
 
Identifier Jost, C.C., Sones, K.R., Bett, B., Kihu, S., Nzietchueng, S., Njogu, G., Swai, E., Minjauw, B., Amanfu, W., Rocque, S. de la, Martin, V. and Mariner, J.C. 2009. Towards better control and prevention of Rift Valley fever in the Greater Horn of Africa: a decision support tool for veterinary services. Paper presented at the 12th conference of the International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics, Durban, South Africa, 10-14 August 2009. Nairobi (Kenya): ILRI
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/1227
 
Language en
 
Publisher ILRI