Waves of endemic foot-and-mouth disease in eastern Africa suggest feasibility of proactive vaccination approaches

Livestock production in Africa is key to national economies, food security and rural livelihoods, and > 85% of livestock keepers live in extreme poverty. With poverty elimination central to the Sustainable Development Goals, livestock keepers are therefore critically important. Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious livestock disease widespread in Africa that contributes to this poverty. Despite its US$2.3 billion impact, control of the disease is not prioritized: standard vaccination regimens are too costly, its impact on the poorest is underestimated, and its epidemiology is too weakly understood. Our integrated analysis in Tanzania shows that the disease is of high concern, reduces household budgets for human health, and has major impacts on milk production and draft power for crop production. Critically, foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in cattle are driven by livestock-related factors with a pattern of changing serotype dominance over time. Contrary to findings in southern Africa, we find no evidence of frequent infection from wildlife, with outbreaks in cattle sweeping slowly across the region through a sequence of dominant serotypes. This regularity suggests that timely identification of the epidemic serotype could allow proactive vaccination ahead of the wave of infection, mitigating impacts, and our preliminary matching work has identified potential vaccine candidates. This strategy is more realistic than wildlife-livestock separation or conventional foot-and-mouth disease vaccination approaches. Overall, we provide strong evidence for the feasibility of coordinated foot-and-mouth disease control as part of livestock development policies in eastern Africa, and our integrated socioeconomic, epidemiological, laboratory and modelling approach provides a framework for the study of other disease systems

A study of the economic and political drivers of foot-and-mouth disease control in Tanzania

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FORTHE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN EPIDEMIOLOGY OF SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE. MOROGORO, TANZANIA.The Livestock sector plays a vital role in the economies of many developing countries. It provides food, income, employment and possibly foreign exchange. Consumption and trade of livestock and livestock products in developing countries is rapidly growing however, animal diseases have a permanent threat to livestock keepersand major economic implications both through public and private costs of outbreaks. An example of such diseases is transboundary animal diseases (TADs). One of the significant TADs in Tanzania, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), isendemic and a major threat to livestock production. The disease impacts and incentives for its control are likely to vary across stakeholders affected by this disease, but these aspects have been poorly characterized in Tanzania. To address these gaps this study investigated political, economic and social drivers of FMD control in Tanzania across different sectors so as to provide the evidence which would support decision making in the control of the disease. The study used collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data. It revealed that FMD caused a standardized milk loss of 2.67 litres per cow per day withan average price of milk per liter per day estimated at Tsh868.75.Therefore, direct losses due to reduced milk yield were estimated at Tsh2319 and an average indirect loss due to control cost was estimated at Tsh2344 per animal per day. The study further identified vaccination as the most important prevention strategy, however, there is need to predict the pattern in which local circulating virus strains occur and develop vaccines relevant to these circulating strains.Identified priority areas of action include better communication mechanisms for better dialogue amongst stakeholders concerned with FMD control and involvement of livestock keepers in national dialogue. Overall,traditional farmers expressed a keen interest in continuing to be involved in research effortswith researchers to develop joint agendas for FMD control. In Tanzania, there is currently still some debate amongst national stakeholders as to whether FMD should be considered a private or public go

A study of the economic and political drivers of foot-and-mouth disease control in Tanzania

A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FORTHE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN EPIDEMIOLOGY OF SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE. MOROGORO, TANZANIA.The Livestock sector plays a vital role in the economies of many developing countries. It provides food, income, employment and possibly foreign exchange. Consumption and trade of livestock and livestock products in developing countries is rapidly growing however, animal diseases have a permanent threat to livestock keepersand major economic implications both through public and private costs of outbreaks. An example of such diseases is transboundary animal diseases (TADs). One of the significant TADs in Tanzania, foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), isendemic and a major threat to livestock production. The disease impacts and incentives for its control are likely to vary across stakeholders affected by this disease, but these aspects have been poorly characterized in Tanzania. To address these gaps this study investigated political, economic and social drivers of FMD control in Tanzania across different sectors so as to provide the evidence which would support decision making in the control of the disease. The study used collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data. It revealed that FMD caused a standardized milk loss of 2.67 litres per cow per day withan average price of milk per liter per day estimated at Tsh868.75.Therefore, direct losses due to reduced milk yield were estimated at Tsh2319 and an average indirect loss due to control cost was estimated at Tsh2344 per animal per day. The study further identified vaccination as the most important prevention strategy, however, there is need to predict the pattern in which local circulating virus strains occur and develop vaccines relevant to these circulating strains.Identified priority areas of action include better communication mechanisms for better dialogue amongst stakeholders concerned with FMD control and involvement of livestock keepers in national dialogue. Overall,traditional farmers expressed a keen interest in continuing to be involved in research effortswith researchers to develop joint agendas for FMD control. In Tanzania, there is currently still some debate amongst national stakeholders as to whether FMD should be considered a private or public go

In vivo blockade of OX40 ligand inhibits thymic stromal lymphopoietin driven atopic inflammation

Thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) potently induces deregulation of Th2 responses, a hallmark feature of allergic inflammatory diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis, and allergic rhinitis. However, direct downstream in vivo mediators in the TSLP-induced atopic immune cascade have not been identified. In our current study, we have shown that OX40 ligand (OX40L) is a critical in vivo mediator of TSLP-mediated Th2 responses. Treating mice with OX40L-blocking antibodies substantially inhibited immune responses induced by TSLP in the lung and skin, including Th2 inflammatory cell infiltration, cytokine secretion, and IgE production. OX40L-blocking antibodies also inhibited antigen-driven Th2 inflammation in mouse and nonhuman primate models of asthma. This treatment resulted in both blockade of the OX40-OX40L receptor-ligand interaction and depletion of OX40L-positive cells. The use of a blocking, OX40L-specific mAb thus presents a promising strategy for the treatment of allergic diseases associated with pathologic Th2 immune responses

Assessing computational genomics skills: Our experience in the H3ABioNet African bioinformatics network

The H3ABioNet pan-African bioinformatics network, which is funded to support the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) program, has developed node-assessment exer�cises to gauge the ability of its participating research and service groups to analyze typical genome-wide datasets being generated by H3Africa research groups. We describe a frame�work for the assessment of computational genomics analysis skills, which includes standard operating procedures, training and test datasets, and a process for administering the exer�cise. We present the experiences of 3 research groups that have taken the exercise and the impact on their ability to manage complex projects. Finally, we discuss the reasons why many H3ABioNet nodes have declined so far to participate and potential strategies to encourage them to do so