The future of veterinary service delivery in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) was recently
discussed by livestock keepers and Kenya’s top animal health experts. The workshop, which was held in
Nanyuki on October 4 and 5, 2017, was attended by 63 participants and was organised by the national
Department of Veterinary Services and Kenya’s Veterinary Board (KVB) in collaboration with the Global
Alliance for Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), and the Inter-governmental Authority of Development Centre for Pastoral Areas and Livestock Development.

In Kenya, ASALs are home to 70 per cent of the country’s livestock which, according to Kenya’s Department
of Veterinary Services, are worth an estimated Ksh280 billion (US $2.7 billion). But delivery of quality
veterinary services and products in the ASALs is hindered by many challenges, including: the large
remote areas, wide dispersal of livestock herds, poor logistics i.e. rough terrain and inadequate roads and
cold chains, the pastoralists’ nomadic lifestyle, and the limited budget allocated to animal health services
by national and local governments.

The Nanyuki workshop invited ASAL regional stakeholders to discuss how livestock keepers can access
sustainable, affordable and quality veterinary products and services. Traditionally, particularly in the ASAL
regions, the gap in veterinary service provision has been filled by locally available non-veterinarians and
non para-veterinarians, such as community based animal health workers (CBAHWs), who lack veterinary
qualifications but may have received ad hoc training and live with, or in close proximity to, livestock
keepers in these regions. As well as receiving advice from CBAHWs, ASAL livestock keepers tend to treat
animals themselves, based on local knowledge and what they have observed of animal health workers in
the past.

Mark Karbolo, a pastoralist from Olpusimoru region in Narok County, credits CBAHWs with the survival of
30 of his cows and 200 sheep and goats. From his home, the nearest qualified animal health specialists
are located 150 km away in Narok town, and rarely attend pastoralist livestock. To request the assistance
of such specialists to his remote location would also be costly for Karbolo, hence his reliance on locally
available non-veterinarians for guidance. “They live among us and go to the towns to bring us [livestock]
medicines. They are also cheaper, so they really help us,” says Karbolo.

Public and private sector involvement According to Dr Ochieng Odede, Technical Director at Sidai Africa – a social enterprise operating in the livestock sector – the private sector is deterred from setting up animal health provision in the ASALs due to subsidies and issuance of free animal health products from, for example, government or animal health NGOs during emergencies. “If I’m running my shop and farmers who I’m serving get everything for free, I cannot sell to anybody,” says Dr Odede.

“That creates a hostile business environment for the private sector.” However, whilst working in the ASALs, Sidai Africa have observed that pastoralists are willing to pay for good quality animal health products if they see positive results, according to Dr Odede.

Participants at the Nanyuki workshop proposed that the ASAL county governments need to reach out to qualified animal health professionals and create financial incentives that will encourage them to stay in the area. Since devolvement of the Kenyan Government in 2010, county governments have been able to stipulate the number of veterinary surgeons and veterinary paraprofessionals required to meet their county’s needs. The Kenya Veterinary Association (KVA) are also urging county governors to employ more veterinary surgeons in the sub-counties, and more veterinary paraprofessionals in the wards, according to Dr Samuel Kahariri, KVA Chairman. Animal health training institutes are also being encouraged to allocate a certain quota of students from the ASALs to be trained in animal health, and to increase the number of professional animal health workers in these regions.

Filling the gaps

As a signatory of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Kenya is bound by the institution’s guidelines, which call for veterinary services of member countries to be provided by professionals. However, there are currently 2,000 veterinary surgeons and about 8,000 veterinary paraprofessionals registered with the KVB. These numbers are insufficient to meet the needs of the country’s livestock keepers, and their reach is limited to the economically lucrative peri-urban regions where most animal health professionals are based.

As part of efforts to enhance better quality training and to address gaps in veterinary service delivery in Kenya, the Department of Veterinary Services (DVS) began a yearlong internship program in January 2017, with a target of training 1,000 animal health graduates at various training institutes and universities. The programme, which is funded by the Kenyan Government, has since trained 582 interns. Some have been placed in ASAL regions like Turkana County, and are working under experienced veterinarians to provide animal health services to the communities that live there. “They are exposed to the market, where they deliver services and get to know the challenges,” says Dr Dulu Thomas Daido, Deputy Director of Veterinary Services at the DVS.

“CBAHWs were used where there were gaps but with this programme coming in, there will be no gaps, there will be quality health services provided,” Daido continues. Experience in the field gives the graduates credibility, leading to a higher chance of employment following their internship; the programme is also a prerequisite for graduates to be registered with the KVB as veterinary surgeons or veterinary paraprofessionals.

In spite of the current initiatives, it was agreed that the needs of livestock farmers in the ASAL areas are still largely unmet. Due to the uneven distribution of qualified animal health providers, one recommendation from the workshop was to conduct veterinary service delivery mapping in the ASALs, and match this data against the number of livestock in these regions, so that gaps in service provision can be quantified and properly understood before implementing initiatives to fill the gaps. As those gaps are filled, workshop participants also recommended that veterinary services in the ASALs be delivered by qualified personnel, in line with Kenyan laws and OIE guidelines.

Dr Lois Muraguri, Director of Policy and External Affairs at GALVmed asserted in her presentation that livestock and their keepers, irrespective of where they are, deserve access to quality veterinary care, and urged participants to be pragmatic in offering short and long-term options to address lack of access to quality livestock services by livestock keepers in the ASAL areas. “A functional and practical approach should
enhance rather than curtail access, be affordable, and serve the needs of farmers in the ASAL areas,” said Dr Muraguri.

Words and pictures by James Karuga.

On 9 October 2017, the Global Alliance for Livestock and Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) convened a half day meeting in Nairobi with 22 private sector representatives, including livestock product manufacturers, distributors and importers, to discuss how Kenya’s first animal health industry association should be structured and run.

Participants explored the economic feasibility of forming an animal health association, its name, purpose and aims, in addition to deliberating how an association would best
represent their interests before government regulatory authorities, and the self-regulation of members to ensure adherence to good industrial practices.

Although Kenya has several industry associations that focus on certain aspects of animal health, none deal exclusively with animal health issues, and especially, the provision of veterinary care. The existing associations, for example, focus on pest control, livestock feed or agrochemicals. The animal health industry in Kenya is therefore lacking an association to lobby on their behalf on issues such as the slow registration of new animal health products, and the prevalence of stringent taxes and duties on livestock
product imports.

According to Dr Kenneth Mbogori, Director of Metrovet Kenya Limited, a veterinary pharmaceutical manufacturing company, the absence of an animal health association (AHA) also makes it hard to prevent the circulation of counterfeit livestock products, and weed out rogue practitioners in the industry.

The recent half day meeting was a follow up to earlier events facilitated by GALVmed in 2014 and 2016, which brought animal health actors in Kenya together to discuss constraints in getting products and services to livestock keepers. In both the previous meetings, the formation of an AHA was proposed to represent its members, and raise the issue of inefficient animal health service delivery with regulatory authorities.

Following by example

To provide participants with an idea of how an AHA operates, Andre Westerveld, the President of the South African Animal Health Association (SAAHA), gave a presentation on how and why SAAHA was set up, highlighting the benefits for SAAHA members, such as a reduced cost and time taken to evaluate applications for animal health product
licenses; because of this, SAAHA membership has doubled in the last six months. “Nonmembers are seeing an association that adds commercial value to them, and they are joining it,” says Westerveld.

He explained how Kenyan companies could receive such benefits if a similar association was  formed in the country. Led by an appointed independent general manager who is unaffiliated with of its members, SAAHA has gained credibility among regulatory authorities. The association has also aided the South African Government to form an independent veterinary regulatory body made up of experienced animal health researchers to evaluate dossiers for new products from its members. As a result, the time taken for the registration of new animal health products with regulatory authorities has reduced from about five to six years to about six weeks.

An AHA can also build an online forum to help members understand the market size and their company’s rank within the market, based on the sales data they provide. Members can then work to improve their sales if they have a low ranking, or work to maintain a top position if they are ahead. For Dr Patrick Mugo of Eagle Vet Kenya Limited, the potential of having access to market ranking data via an online forum is an exciting prospect. “Using the market information to know the market size and your position, you can act accordingly,” says Mugo. He also feels that an AHA would cater specifically to the needs of the veterinary industry, unlike the other associations currently in place in Kenya.

The Kenyan animal health industry players resolved to form their own association largely modeled on SAAHA, starting by appointing a 10-member committee. The committee members were drawn from the animal health companies represented at the meeting. It was also agreed by those in attendance that the committee formed would discuss the aims of the AHA, types of memberships to be offered and their costs, and the pros and cons of its formation. The committee would then present its deliberations in a month’s time (November 2017) to all prospective members.

Professional services for producers

Formation of the association comes at a time when the veterinary medicines directorate (VMD) has been authorised to take up the mandate of regulating veterinary medicines in Kenya, which was initially with the Pharmacy and Poisons Board of Kenya. According to Dr Mbogori, the AHA would be able to conduct advocacy activities on members’ including representing their interests before regulatory authorities such as the VMD. This would address challenges such as the lengthy process for registration of animal health products.

According to GALVmed’s Director of Policy and External Affairs, Dr Lois Muraguri, formation of the association will be driven by animal health stakeholders in the country, and GALVmed’s role will be to facilitate their meetings, and bring them together. “Our aim is to have a professional industry where farmers can get quality services delivered to them, because they deserve it,” says Dr Muraguri.

(Words and pictures by James Karuga.)

Goat keepers in the western regions of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have reared ruminants for hundreds of years, with virtually all households owning up to five goats on average. However, many such goat keepers have no understanding of such illnesses affecting goats as Peste de Petits Ruminants (PPR) or goat plague that afflict their herds, accepting the consequent losses  as God’s act.

There are two barriers to addressing these losses. First – a lack of awareness of the disease and vaccine, and second – difficulties in gaining access to animal health products and services in remote areas. Both need to be overcome in order to deliver a robust grassroots disease prevention and treatment service that benefits backyard goat keepers and smallholder farmers.

Local NGO, Sharif Gramodyog Vikas Kendra (Sharif Rural Development Centre), with support from non-profit company, Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed), has recently completed a project that addressed some of the challenges faced in delivering such a service and produced solutions that will potentially bridge the gap.

The project focused on:

• Building awareness of good goat health management with the aim of reducing mortality rates through regular vaccination and deworming
• Creating a supply chain network for a PPR vaccine
• Improving rearing practices in the goat keeping community and develop goat rearing as a viable means of making a livelihood

“Any intervention cannot be aimed at short term goals,” said Dr Rahul Srivastava, Market Development Manager, GALVmed (in South Asia).

“By raising awareness of the service through training at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, it creates a mindset shift among goat keepers. This is the starting point for delivering a sustainable animal health care service.”

“The first thing we had to do was to apprise them of the treatment for goat plague. Before the training, the villagers simply accepted it as a normal phenomenon,” stated Sharif Hussain, President, SGVK.

Several grassroots level veterinary professionals have availed the training and the results are evident on the ground now. By June 2016, the network had sold over 71,300 doses of the PPR or Goat Plague vaccines and 66,540 doses of the dewormers.

Parvez Alam, 43, from rural Moradabad was one of the para-veterinarians who received training. A para-vet since the age of 22, he found out about the campaign via one of the numerous posters that were displayed to publicise it and was motivated, joined the programme. Soon he was joined by his protégé and fellow para-vet 31-year-old Mohammad Owais. The star vaccinators of the campaign, the duo were responsible for vaccinating herds from over 15 villages.

When asked about the problems he faced Parvez said, “Initially there was some hesitation among villagers. They had never heard of vaccination.”

Both Alam and Owais are old hands at the trade and well known in the nearby villages. The villagers were soon convinced and the results were obvious.

“Earlier, every rainy season would see the goats suffering from diarrhoea and soon enough one by one the entire flock would die,” continued Alam.

As part of the awareness building campaign surrounding the available vaccine, over 23,000 posters and over 1,000 banners were displayed in 231 villages.

To create a demand for the vaccine service, smallholder goat keepers received training on good goat rearing practices in the local chaupals (village halls), and in addition, 131 were exposed to first-hand experience and training in goat health, nutrition and management for commercial goat farming at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Izatnagar.

Another 264 smallholder farmers were trained in 10 villages across the project area. Veterinary professionals from district veterinary hospitals were involved in every stage of the training process. Goat farming recommendations, which farmers reported were new to them, and interaction with veterinary professionals were also part of the training.

By June 2017, the project had reached a total of nearly 19,000 households in the project area with over 68,000 PPR vaccinations administered plus over 65,000 animals dewormed. Veterinary professionals from district veterinary hospitals were involved in every stage of the process, enabling robust support to the service delivery value chain.  The exposure to these aspects of goat farming and active interaction with veterinary professionals were also given to common farmers as a part of awareness creation. For them, this aspect of goat farming was a new component.

Smallholder goat keepers in the project area have spoken positively about the outcome of the project. For 50-year-old Anisa Begum, livestock is an important source of income for her family. Every year Anisa would feel helpless as her animals succumbed to the disease and died. Though some villagers were hesitant, Anisa readily vaccinated her goats.

“When they told me about the vaccine I was ready to get my animals vaccinated. The vets came here to help us, and we benefitted from their service,” Anisa said. The satisfaction among smallholder farmers with the results of the vaccination programme has increased demand.

“Well informed goat keepers will take good decisions in goat husbandry and create demand for quality products and services at the final mile,” said Dr Srivastava.

While demand among smallholder farmers has increased, raising awareness of the business potential of animal health medicines and vaccines was important to ensure the whole supply chain was on board with the initiative. Wholesale medicine traders and shop owners were made aware of the business opportunities while at the other end of the supply chain, goat meat traders were educated about the benefits of clean and nutritious meat from healthy livestock. The traders soon agreed to buy goats directly from the farmers who were vaccinating thus ensuring that the farmers would get a fair price for their efforts.

Future initiatives will target farmers who are enthusiastic about the small business potential of preventative goat health care and develop the market in vaccines to create a sustainable value chain.

(Written by Deepak Bhadana. Photos by ALTERNATIVES)

See also the video post The mobile vet: Bringing healthier livestock to India’s rural farmers.

In remote areas of India, access to veterinary services is often difficult. Tribal livestock farmers have to travel far from their villages when there is a dire need of treatment for their animals. This has adversely affected livestock farming in tribal regions which are often located in remote locations. Until recently, lack of infrastructure in these areas has impeded the delivery of basic veterinary services. The infrastructure is not well-organised and fragmented, making it difficult for targeted service delivery. Moreover, security in these areas has been a matter of concern. Considering these detailed and widespread factors, the region has not experienced many development activities.

Birsa Yuva Seva Samiti (BYSS), established by Dr Bablu Sundi with the help of his friend Dr S S Kulu, made an effort to provide veterinary services in remote rural areas through a mobile van.The van was converted into a mobile veterinary ambulance. With the help of the van, BYSS reached several remote areas and provided veterinary care.

The non-profit company, Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines (GALVmed) had been looking for an opportunity to enable service delivery in this difficult context. As there were very few permanent veterinary establishments, veterinarians or a supportive infrastructure, it was envisaged that mobile veterinary services could support a viable supply chain and ensure delivery of good quality veterinary treatment in these remote areas, providing relief to tribal livestock farmers. A mobile service could also act as a multi-purpose utility-raising awareness of livestock diseases and treatment, and providing access to a market for livestock vaccines and medicines while becoming the primary method of delivering veterinary services. It was also anticipated that a team of veterinarians and veterinary para-professionals would efficiently deliver animal health care services to larger areas through this project.

Dr Bablu Sundi, being a veterinarian with a tribal background, hunderstood the grassroots needs. He therefore did not restrict himself to veterinary work exclusively, but also expanded into animal health care service delivery and agriculture advisory services. This combination was highly innovative.

The model for the VETmark mobile veterinary service is based on the one established by the NGO Birsa Yuva Seva Samiti (BYSS) who converted a truck for use as a mobile veterinary ambulance. This prototype is delivering veterinary and agro-based services in the districts of East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Saraikela Kharsawan in Jharkhand state.

The mobile service could also be used for helping backyard farmers in selling their products to urban markets. With the thought of combining these services GALVmed and Hester Biosciences joined hands with BYSS. This bringing together of veterinary and marketing initiatives were termed VETmark.

As part of VETmark, the BYSS initiative has been expanded. It is now delivering veterinary services in these districts as well as providing tools for awareness generation, such as pocket projectors for video shows with the support of GALVmed. And with the help of Hester Biosciences Ltd, the timely delivery of medicines and vaccines has been ensured.

Specifically BYSS now offers animal health care services to all smallholder farmers raising poultry, goats, sheep, pigs, cattle and buffalos. The services comprise treatment, vaccination and advice on nutrition and husbandry practices for all animal types.

The team has not only extended veterinary services with a mobile agrovet clinic, but now also represents farmers at local markets – ensuring that their in-demand indigenous poultry receive the best price possible in the market relative to commercial broilers and other poultry. Historically this service would be provided by traders or other intermediaries; however, the fair market value for indigenous birds may not have been delivered to the villagers.

BYSS, led by Dr Sundi, established a clinic in Dumaria Block of East Singbhum in 2013. The same year, they started an ambulance service for sick animals.

Commenting on the project, Dr Rahul Srivastava, GALVmed’s Market Development Manager for South Asia said, “Considering the difficulties in service delivery to smallholder livestock keepers in remote areas, we found the innovation initiated by Dr Sundi to be interesting, and decided to use the mobile van as a means of sustainable animal health care products and door-to-door service delivery. The results of this partnership is quite satisfactory.”

After receiving support from GALVmed, Dr Sundi started providing additional services through VETmark. These additional services included sharing information about governmental and non-governmental projects related to animal husbandry and animal produce as well as raising awareness of seasonal diseases in birds and other livestock, and their treatment. He also gave livestock health, nutrition and management training to the master trainers using a projector.

In the last few years, Dr Sundi has expanded his team by involving local educated unemployed youths, with the help of GALVmed and Hester. According to Dr Sundi, with the help of his ten team members, the VETmark initiative has been a beneficial one to the rural smallholder farmers in Jharkhand. From August 2016 to June 2017, a total of 120,300 backyard birds and 17,510 goats were vaccinated against ND and PPR disease, respectively. Approximately 10,694 birds, 8,824 goats, 2,500 pigs and 2,977 cattle were
also dewormed during this time. Dr Sundi and his team also vaccinated poultry and other livestock against fowl pox, black quarter, haemorrhagic septicaemia, foot and mouth disease, and enterotoxaemia.

Under the VETmark project, an easy mechanism for helping villagers sell their poultry has been established. The poultry and livestock farmers who could not profit from their livestock when there was no animal health service are now seeing the benefits of this initiative. The BYSS vaccinators purchase the chickens from the villagers and sell them at town or city markets. This protects the farmers from middlemen and ensures that they receive a fair price for their produce. They also don’t have to travel to markets,
which are often far from their homes.

“I could undertake the initiative as I understood the locality and its people well,” said Dr Sundi.“Most outsiders would find it difficult to work here because of political and infrastructural issues. Involving the local youth in this work has provided an added advantage.”

Through the support he has been getting from GALVmed and Hester combined with demand from villagers, Dr Sundi aspires to take the VETmark initiative to every village of Jharkhand.

He exemplifies the success that can be achieved when veterinarians actively participate in service delivery at the grassroots and broaden the scope of services.

(Written by Deepak Bhadana with editorial inputs from Saloni Srivastava. Photos by ALTERNATIVES.)

GALVmed jointly organised a workshop in Arusha, Tanzania, with Sokoine University of Agriculture recently to raise awareness of Contagious Caprine Pleuro-Pneumonia (CCPP) among animal health service delivery stakeholders.

The workshop was based on a baseline study that GALVmed had commissioned in 2013/14 and conducted by the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), to obtain information on CCPP in the Manyara region of Tanzania.

The objective of the study was to stimulate decision making and a policy change in the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries to include the use of a quality and reliable CCPP vaccine for the effective control of CCPP, helping to increase goat productivity and improve farmers’ livelihoods.

CCPP is a serious respiratory disease that threatens a significant number of goat populations around the world – Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, including Tanzania.

Clinical disease has been reported in 38 countries with the highest incidence found in African and Asian nations. Additionally, CCPP’s high rates of morbidity (90–100 per cent) and mortality (60–80 per cent) have had wide-ranging negative effects on livestock productivity and trade restrictions in many countries in Africa.

The workshop was held in order to communicate findings and to sensitise policy makers and other stakeholders from the public and private sector to the extent and effects of CCPP, and on the need to promote a practical and efficient system for facilitating availability, accessibility and affordability of quality CCPP vaccine to farmers to effectively control CCPP.

It was attended by 40 participants including Tanzania’s Director of Veterinary Services, Dr Abdu Hayghaimo, other central government and local government officials and representatives of private companies, farmers and academia.

The workshop examined the evidence on the status, extent and impact of CCPP in Tanzania and identified gaps that need to be filled. Participants came up with practical recommendations on controlling CCPP in Tanzania.

It was noted that CCPP prevalence in the six districts covered by the study would be reflective of the situation in many other districts across Tanzania. Most of those affected were smallholder farmers whose animals are decimated and their livelihoods devastated by CCPP, yet they contribute greatly to the economy of the country.

It was further noted that government policy was not against vaccination but that it had not been implemented due to a number of factors including lack of awareness and limited human resources – more than half of the 169 districts have no District Veterinary Officers (DVOs) who are essential to the implementation of government policy and disease control measures. It was therefore recommended that the relevant government authorities be engaged further and the public be sensitised towards implementing the policies in favour of vaccination, including in the short term authorising the importation of the vaccine from KEVEVAPI in Kenya, NVI in Ethiopia and MCI in Morocco which are the only entities in Africa producing the CCPP vaccine.

The partnership between GALVmed and SUA was commended as well as GALVmed’s technical and financial support. It is expected that the momentum will be maintained given that Tanzania is one of the BMGF tier one countries and CCPP is one of the priority diseases in VITAL.

By Julius Singoma

One of GALVmed’s key technology partners has been included in this year’s edition of a prestigious UK government publication.

Cambridge-based biopharmaceutical company Arecor is profiled in the Technology edition of the Parliamentary Review as an example of ‘an outstanding organisation and growth company’.

Established by former minister Rt Hon David Curry shortly after the 2010 UK general election, the Parliamentary Review’s September release has become a key fixture in the UK political calendar, demonstrating how sector leaders have responded to challenges in the political and economic environment.

The publication showcases best practice and acts as a learning tool to the public and private sector and is aimed particularly at leading policymakers and executives within the technology sector.

Dr Sarah Howell, Chief Executive of Arecor, said: “We at Arecor are thrilled to have been chosen to feature in this year’s Review alongside such an august and select group of companies.

GALVmed’s Chief Scientific Officer Jeremy Salt commented: “At GALVmed we would all like to add our congratulations to Arecor on this recognition that they have received.

“Over the last five years Arecor has been a key strategic partner for GALVmed in our pursuit of high quality technology developments to aid the smallholder farmer in sub-Saharan Africa and S Asia.

“We are grateful to Arecor staff for their dedication to our various joint projects to improve vaccines for East Coast Fever, Peste de Petits Ruminantes and Newcastle Disease.

“We look forward to future collaborations and more successes for Arecor.”

An e-copy of the Technology edition of the 2017 Parliamentary Review can be viewed at https://www.theparliamentaryreview.co.uk/editions/technology/technology.