The government’s plan to mass vaccinate 72 million livestock from January next year to control Kenya’s two major animal diseases has been hounded by conspiracy theories and rumours steeped in misinformation.
The nationwide Animal Vaccination Campaign which will kick off in January next year targets the vaccination of 22 million cattle against Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and 50 million goats and sheep from Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR).
FMD causes an estimated Sh297 billion in losses yearly for African farmers. The disease which is endemic in Kenya is ranked as a top two disease by livestock keepers as it has an up to five per cent death rate in all cattle that get it and causes an up to 80 per cent reduction in milk output. PPR kills up to 90 per cent of animals in herds that are not vaccinated. During major outbreaks, 80 per cent of sheep and goats in Kenya have died from the disease.
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has been found in 22.5 percent of the country’s livestock. It causes the death of one to five per cent of the herd’s adult animals and twenty per cent or higher of young calves, lambs, and piglets. In milking cattle, it has been shown to reduce daily production from 20 to 13 liters for at least two months if the animal recovers. In working or draught animals, it severely weakens them making them unable to work. The disease can also induce abortions and secondary bacterial infections.
According to officials at the Director of Veterinary Services, the vaccine used in the nationwide animal vaccination program will be FOTIVAX manufactured by the Kenya Veterinary Vaccines Production Institute (KEVEVAPI).
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The vaccine is made of four variants of FMD found in Kenya. These are, FMD virus strains A, O, SAT1, and SAT2.
To be effective, mass vaccination programmes for the program need to cover at least 80 per cent of cattle.
The vaccine works by introducing small doses of the virus strains that cannot cause the disease itself, to stimulate the animals’ immune systems to respond against the specific strains of the virus.
The other components of FOTIVAX are inactive ingredients such as antibiotics, dyes, and stabilisers that support the vaccine’s efficacy, stability, and safety but do not directly provide immunity.
Speaking to the Kenya News Agency, the Director and Head of Marketing at the State Department for Livestock Development Dr Richard Kyuma said the vaccination program will also unlock Kenya’s livestock export market.
FMD has been eliminated in potential export destinations such as the United States since the 1920s and in Western Europe since the 1980s. The US and EU therefore cannot take any of Kenya’s livestock products because of fears that the transboundary animal disease will be reintroduced in their regions.
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Amongst Turkana pastoralists, the Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR) caused 88 per cent of deaths in goats and sheep that were infected by the disease. These losses were estimated at Sh2.1 billion. Other losses due to the disease were losses in milk and weight estimated at Sh297 million.
The government will be using the Pestevax virus vaccine which is made from the Nigeria 75/1 PPR vaccine developed by the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD) and Pirbright Institute. A single injection of the vaccine gives small ruminants defenses against PPR for at least two to three years.
Pestevax has been used in another mass vaccination program in Morocco where 25 million doses of the vaccine were produced by Moroccan laboratory, Biopharma, which vaccinated more than 20 million sheep.
For a mass vaccination program to be effective against (PPR), 100 per cent of the high-risk areas should be covered by the program. This is because a post-vaccination immunity level of 70 per cent of the herd achieves herd immunity and breaks the virus’s spread.
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Despite the clear benefits of the planned mass vaccination against these two killer diseases, many Kenyans from popular agriculture influencers such as Caleb Karuga and potential 2027 presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka have objected to it raising concerns of a globalist agenda to test new vaccines on our animals or gene-edit our livestock to stop them from emitting the toxic methane gas or even make them defective.
Despite the government’s many shortcomings, many of which we have called out, these claims are patently false. As we have shown, the vaccines have been in use for decades, and given the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first gene-editing therapies which cost drug companies five billion dollars to produce– over five times the cost of traditional drugs– in December of last year, the idea that they would ‘waste’ this valuable investment on African livestock would be a most bewildering use of resources for an industry famed for its focus o profits above all else.
Photo Courtesy: ILRI