Status of postgraduate training in the livestock sector in East and Central Africa and priorities for ILRI’s support

ILRI recognizes that the long-term solution to address the continuous and dynamic nature of capacity strengthening needs is to develop sustainable capacity within the relevant organizations which are mandated to build capacity of the various stakeholder groups engaged in the livestock innovation system. To this effect, ILRI has undertaken a number of initiatives including training needs assessment in the ASARECA region during 2007. The current study seeks to assess the status of postgraduate training in the ASARECA region with the overall objective of strengthening the postgraduate training and research capacity of the tertiary educational institutes in the livestock sector within SSA. The specific objective is to identify the gaps in the postgraduate training in animal production and veterinary sciences and to identify the roles and priorities of ILRI in bridging this gap

Boiled milk, food safety and the risk of exposure to milk borne pathogens in informal dairy markets in Tanzania

In Tanzania, more than 80% of the milk consumed is marketed as loose, raw milk. On the other hand, the practice of boiling milk before consumption is very common. The study was carried out to establish food safety status of informally marketed milk including boiled milk. Milk samples were collected in four wards of Temeke Municipality of Dar es salaam. A total of 69, 44 and 7 milk samples were collected from randomly selected farmers, milk kiosks and all milk vendors. The bacteriological quality of the milk with respect to Total Bacterial Counts (TBC) and Escherichia coli was lower at milk vendors level than farm and milk kiosk. The TBC of raw milk was found to be an average of 2.8 ± 0.98 x 106 cfu/ml at producer level, 3.4 ± 2.6 x 107 cfu/ml at vendor’s level and 4.8 ± 3.3 x 107 cfu/ml at kiosk level. TBC values for kiosk milk boiled and served hot was also determined and found to be an average of 3.7 ± 2.3 x 105 cfu/ml. The samples were analysed for presence of toxin producing Staphylococcus aureus. Exposure assessment showed that the probability of purchasing boiled milk contaminated with S. aureus, served hot at kiosks was 0.227 (90%CI: 0.062-0.436). It was estimated that every day, 953 (90%CI: 718-1,249) people purchase milk from kiosks in peri-urban Temeke, and among them, 217 (90%CI: 62-427) people were likely to purchase contaminated milk. The present study found that while boiling made milk generally safer by killing most pathogens, it still carries the risk of consumer exposure to pathogenic bacteria due to possible recontamination