Response to Drought Appeal

The joint RVC Vetaid Kenya Appeal succeeded in raising over £ 12,000 to support the provision of vital veterinary services, in collaboration with government vets,  in the Tana River basin in order to keep the remaining livestock stock alive. This has included cattle, camel and goats belonging to displaced pastoralists which, crucially, could provide the next generation breeding stock.

Vetaid Kenya has been working primarily in the Tana River basin where animals have migrated to in search of grazing. This area has been fortunate in that it received some late rains meaning that there was sufficient grazing to keep animals migrating into the area from dying of starvation. However, the situation is complex as they are still at great risk of disease arising due to the large concentration of stressed animals in a restricted area with diseases that they may not have any endemic immunity to.

The funding raised by the Vetaid appeal through the RVC has been used to provide logistical support in the Tana River, including hiring vehicles and purchasing vaccination equipment to assist an already hard pressed government veterinary team. Working with vaccines provided by the FAO, this initiative has already succeeded in vaccinating 125,000 cattle and 25,000 camels against Blackquarter (Clostridium chauvoei)and Anthrax (Bacillus anthracis). In addition, 15,000 sheep and goats have been vaccinated against Peste des Petits Ruminants, Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia and Goat Pox. All these animals were also dewormed with broad spectrum anthelmintics  to help reduce parasitic stress.

It is recognized that this emergency intervention is only an initial response to a longer term problem. However, even this will have gone some way to help sustain traditional livelihoods and avoid the need for even more pastoralists to resort to a life in one of the huge refugee camps such as Dadaab. This crisis, has served to demonstrate how small organisations such as Vetaid can particularly effective in this field through their flexibility and willingness to work in some of the remote areas of the country where help is most urgently needed. Therefore the campaign will need to continue in order to help the pastoralists rebuild their herds and return to their traditional grazing area. 

In response to the longer term preparedness for future climatic disasters, Vetaid is consulting closely with the Kenyan government as well as its Veterinaires sans Frontieres partners as international agencies such as the FAO.  Dr Gabriel Turasha, Director of VETAID Kenya, has a long term commitment to enhance  pastoralist resilience to future droughts through developing fodder banks along Tana River with improved irrigation and storage systems. In addition he wants to see improved  training of pastoralists in sustainable water conservation methods, better access to  animal markets and timely control of endemic diseases.                                         

Phone tech transforms African business and healthcare - tech - 10 October 2011 - New Scientist

Phone tech transforms African business and healthcare - tech - 10 October 2011 - New Scientist

Mobile Learning for Africa - thesis

Final year Master thesis by Jenni Parker - worth a visit just for the quality of presentation - the text and ideas are good too!

Link to Thesis

Mobiles in Africa video

Guardian reflection on drought response

"the crisis had put the spotlight on food insecurity, the need to promote resilience and, especially, the need to invest in agriculture and particularly small farmers, who produce 90% of Africa's food. Mike Wooldridge, the BBC's veteran world affairs correspondent, who has covered past famines, said he could not agree more on the importance of agriculture."

David Peppiatt, head of humanitarian policy at the British Red Cross

Full article

Update on VetAid Kenya progress in the field

VETAID with support from FAO Kenya has started vaccination in the Tana River District.

Cattle vaccination:
One team of Government and VETAID is currently vaccinating cattle against Black quarter and Anthrax and already 50,000 doses have been delivered to the field.

50 Litres of Baytical for the control of Tsetse flies have also been distributed to the livestock owners.

FMD: There is currently an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease and samples taken revealed the SAT1 strain. Vaccine is available locally but none has been supplied or procured as of now.

Sheep and goats:
60,000 doses of CCPP and 60,000 doses of sheep and goats pox vaccines have also been delivered and vaccination is ongoing.

Presentation on mobile surveillance at Royal African Society

Royal African Society presentation 1st september 2011

View more presentations from nshort1.

Google Nairobi agree to support emergency veterinary campaign

The RVC has been working with Imperial College, Google. VetAid Kenya and the FAO on using mobile phones for disease surveillance in East Africa. Using an open source application,  EpiCollect, developed by Imperial College we have been able to accurately map where and when animals have been treated or vaccinated in the most remote areas. This allows accurate monitoring of the coverage of vaccination campaigns and helps in predicting future disease risks.

The current terrible drought in East Africa has not only affected millions of people but it has decimated livestock herds on which the pastoralists depend. In the face of this crisis, VetAid a small Kenyan veterinary NGO, has started to use mobiles in the field as part of their emergency response. This allows them to feed back to the coordinating centre what is happening in the field - this is important information for governments and donor agencies too. Significantly it is also possible for the general public and individual donors to log onto a Google map and see exactly where there funding is being used.

This exciting development is now being assisted by Google Kenya who yesterday offered logistical and training support for the deployment of the application and assistance with visualising data. Google.org have also been helping by encouraging Google staff to donate their old Android handsets which are then donated to vets in Kenya working in the field.

So perhaps something good can come out of all the current suffering in East Africa which will help future generations better prepare and respond to disasters.

FAO Media Centre: Rome emergency meeting rallies to aid Horn of Africa

The meeting agreed that governments of the six countries hit by the crisis would manage the response to the crisis, informed by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee's (IASC) Horn of Africa Plan of Action.

The meeting stressed that there is still a "window of opportunity" to support affected populations to resume their livelihoods and to enable farmers, fishers and herders to help themselves through these times of crisis within their own communities and emphasised that displacement of populations should be avoided as far as possible.

Specifically, support should be given to pastoralists and agropastoralists, who constitute a dynamic and sustainable livelihood system in the region, the meeting agreed. At the same time, however, it was recognized that the mobility of pastoralists and their livestock within countries and across borders was essential for saving lives and preserving the foundations of food and nutrition security. 

FAO Media Centre: Rome emergency meeting rallies to aid Horn of Africa

Photos of drought affected livestock

These photos were taken in the Tana River area by Vetaid in the last few days. They show some of the cattle that have moved down to this area from the North East of Kenya.

From the pictures it is possible to see that some grazing remains and recent rains mean that there will be food for these starving animals. However, the next risk they will face is diseases arising from the stress of trekking long distances in poor condition and then moving into areas where they have no immunity to the local diseases. This includes TseTse fly transmitted trypanosomiasis which is common in the delta, infectious epidemic diseases such as CBPP (cattle) and CCPP and PPR (small stock) and parasitic diseases such as liver fluke.

Drought in Kenya - Oxfam Report

VETAID East Africa: Drought Response Appeal; Web Review

Overview

• More than 10 million people in East Africa are facing desperate food shortages following the worst drought in 60 years1
• While there have been 28 droughts in the area over the past century, four have struck in the past decade alone, causing significant animal loss2  
• As of the July 1st 2011  in some parts of Kenya and Ethiopia, at least 60 percent of the herds have perished3
• Livestock prices have dropped from Ksh. 6110 in April 2011 to the current Ksh.5000 for a mature bull together with increased migration with over  50-60km covered against the pre-drought distance of 8-12kms4
• In some areas of northern Kenya and southern Somalia, rainfall was less than 30 percent of the 1995-2010 average5
• ‘30 per cent of the 600,000 cows in Garissa County have been swept by drought’ with goats and camels similarly affected, resulting in many of these former livestock owners roaming the streets of North Eastern urban areas.6
• Pastoralists in Marsabit keep more than 2 million cows, camels, goats and sheep, worth an estimated $67m
• Thomas Bett, district officer for Wajir East, talks of using solar and wind power to draw water for irrigation. "Lots of people have dropped out of pastoralism for good and there is nothing else for them to do in the settlements in the desert,"7
• In East Africa in 2008 it was reported that pastoralists occupied 70% of the land in Kenya. Although numerically populations were small 1.5 Million of Kenya’s 30 million population.8

1. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/east-africa-drought-2011.html#
2.http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/kenya-drought-insurance

3 http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93142
4.United Nations_SIM_ Press Release _Moyale 8 June 2011_ FINAL
5.http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/horn_africa/docs/HoA_Crisis_FAO_Short-Term_Funding_Needs.pdf
6.http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/InsidePage.php?id=2000040050&cid=4&
7.http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=93397
8.http://www.smith.edu/anthro/documents/FratkinASR.pdf

Click Here For More Current Analysis and Background Data

Livestock Emergency Guidelines

3-minute introduction to the Livestock Emergency Guidelines and Standards

VETAID and RVC response to drought in East Africa

Context : The Regional Disaster

The drought situation in North Eastern Kenya and other marginal agriculture areas is becoming increasingly serious, with the poor 2010 short rains contributing to an acute food and livelihood crisis as early as January 2011. This situation has been further exacerbated by the poor performance of the long rains through April, May, June and July 2011 and, based on the seasonal forecast for August and beyond has now deteriorated into a humanitarian emergency way before the onset of the short rains (expected in October).

The President of Kenya declared the current drought a national disaster in his speech to the nation in late May 2011. This is in the midst of an inflation rate of 14% which is the highest in two years and likely to continue increasing (OCHA, May 2011). Food prices have shot up drastically to unprecedented levels with maize prices rising sharply to 30-60 percent above the 5 year average in the pastoral and agro-pastoral areas.

Most of the people worst affected by the drought are traditionally pastoralists who traditionally rely on keeping livestock for their livelihood. However their animals have also been badly hit by the disaster with starvation, disease and death commonplace. Many of their best breeding animals are dying and so regenerating the herds after the worst of the drought and restoring pastoral livelihoods will be impossible.

In the North Eastern Province, where the drought is most severe, the main coping mechanisms for pastoralists is to move their livestock southwards to the Tana River delta, Galana Ranch and Mwingi District and Tsavo East National Park. To date, over one million head of livestock have moved into the Tana River Country in search of better pastures whilst other herds have moved to the Galana Ranch and Tsavo East National Park.

Conflicts over access to grazing between the pastoral communities from the north and the resident farming communities along the river are on the rise. Livestock diseases such as Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), Contagious Caprine Pleuropneumonia (CCPP), Mange, Foot and Mouth Disease, and other notifiable diseases may occur, thus depleting further the pastoral assets and constraining their livelihoods. Note: a PPR outbreak has already been reported in Isiolo.


Response to Emergency 

Kenya has not seen an emergency of this magnitude before and the Government, NGOs and international agencies (including the UK Department for International Development and the Disaster Emergency Committee) have moved quickly to raise funds to provide food, water and shelter for those worst affected by the disaster. Whilst these short term measures are clearly a crucial initial response to save lives, there is a longer concern about whether people who have moved to the massive emergency refugees camps will ever be able to return to their pastoral livelihoods.

One area that Kenyan and international organisations have been struggling with is how to maintain a breeding nucleus of cattle and goats on an increasingly limited food resource. One response that the government and NGOs such as Oxfam is trying is de-stocking the livestock commercially and through slaughter for food/meat distribution. However, it has always been difficult to convince e pastoralists to give up their animals especially when they are little more than skin and bones with no monetary value.

One option that does offer some hope is to protect livestock herds that have moved into areas with better pastures still persist such as the South East of the country around the Tana River. By providing some grazing and additional forage supplies it may be possible to keep some of these animals alive until the new rains come further North. However, there are many challenges including the risk of disease outbreaks in animals which are already weak and whose immune status is poor and the movement and clustering of animals makes disease transmission more likely. In addition there are endemic diseases such as trypanosomiasis which incoming livestock will have no resistance to.

In order to try and assist the pastoralists who have managed to move their stock south, a number of organisations have set up an emergency veterinary response. One of these, VETAID Kenya, is a local East African NGO which has been working in the region for over 20 years providing veterinary support for pastoralists. As a Kenyan organisation Vetaid has the particular advantage that it is able to mobilise veterinary teams rapidly and deliver effective interventions in the field. It also works closely with the FAO, Ministry of Livestock and other veterinary partners (Veterinaires Sans Frontieres (VSF) - Belgium, VSF-Suisse, and VSF-Germany) to try and protect these herds.


Proposed intervention

VETAID Kenya is already working in the affected areas providing the following support for pastoralists and their livestock:

1. De-worming of stock within the Tana River delta to reduce parasite burdens and minimize nutritional stress

2. Vaccination against PPR, CCPP, sheep and goats pox, enterotoxaemia, Blackquarter, anthrax and CBPP

3. Providing pour-ons to control Tsetse flies and protect against Trypanosomiasis

4. Promoting de-stocking for food by purchasing livestock in good condition, slaughter and distribution of the meat to the communities

The approaches are already providing of benefit to the small number of pastoralists who have been reached. It is proposed to expand these activities to benefit a far larger number of livestock in the coming 6 months.

Further information

Local contact : Dr Gabriel Turhasa, Vetaid Kenya (vetaidtz@gmail.com)

UK contact : Nick Short, RVC, London (nshort@rvc.ac.uk)

Summary report of Kenya mobile workshop

Use of Mobile Technologies to Support Disease Surveillance, Education and Knowledge Sharing in the Veterinary Sector

Summary Report

Background

This workshop was proposed as a means of bringing together organisations and individuals with an interest in the use of mobile phones and computers in the veterinary sector. The intention was to explore how these new technologies could be deployed in Kenya to support existing approaches to veterinary education and enhance disease surveillance practices. The event was organised by the Royal Veterinary College with support from Vetaid Kenya, the University of Nairobi Veterinary School, Imperial College and the Institute of Education. The FAO provided funding for the event. Further details can be found in Appendix 1 within the original proposal.

Venue

At relatively short notice the venue for day 1 and 2 of the workshop had to be shifted from the Chiromo Campus to the Kabete Campus. Nevertheless due a lot of local support and the goodwill of the University this change was made smoothly. A large meeting room was kindly made available in the Clinical Centre which proved perfect. Lunch and refreshments were provided by the Vet Lab Golf Club.

Unfortunately the internet data access on campus was poor and this restricted some of the mobile demonstrations. Therefore on Day 3 the workshop was relocated to the iHub in Nairobi which is purpose built for technology events and proved ideal for a smaller group of delegates.

Delegates

In total over 70 vets attended the workshop, most of whom attended on both Day 1 and 2. The last day was a hands on event where numbers were restricted to 20 people. A full delegate list is attached as Appendix 2.

Presentations

The presentations on all 3 days were all high quality Powerpoints delivered through a laptop and projected using a mini projectore. Most of the presentations have been published on the project blog site at http://androidsinafrica.blogspot.com/. In addition a number of videos of working groups were made using a Flip camera by delegates and have since been published on You Tube and linked to the blog.

Key Outputs

A number of clear themes became apparent through discussion during the workshop, working groups and after the event. These included the following:

-          There are computers and internet access on campus but numbers are limited

-          Some students and vets have their own laptop but this is not true for all

-          Everybody had a mobile phone but relatively few had a smart phone yet

-          About 5 people in the audience already had purchased a new Android phone

-          Many delegates expressed an interest in purchasing the new Huwaei Ideos phone

-          The concept of e-learning was well received and many people felt  they would benefit from using it

-          WikiVet was seen to be a great resource for undergraduate teaching

-          Whilst Swahili translation was not needed for vets it might be useful for farmers

-          Recording podcasts and videocasts for farmers and CAHWS which can be played on a mobile phone

-          Many people did not realise that that Open Education Resources were free

-          Everybody appreciated the potential of using a mobile in the field for reference

-          There was also a lot of interest in using phones for surveillance

-          However there was some debate about who would collect data and where it could be stored securely

-          The design of good questionnaires was a problem which needs more help

-          Several people expressed the possibility of using EpiCollect for research projects

-          Delegates wanted more opportunities to try out the phones in the field

-          Further exchange visits were encouraged by the delegates

-          Agreed to set up an email discussion list after the event to keep people in touch with each other

Recommendations

It has not been possible to collect any systematic feedback as delegates but individual comments and emails have been appreciative. However, based on the feedback from individuals the following recommendations are made by the organisers:

-          A follow up training visit is organised later in the year is required to develop more sophisticated data collection forms. These could be developed with EpiCollect to run on Android phones or other applications depending on the exact requirements and local conditions

-          More training in developing quality questionnaires in paper format which can then be adapted for use on mobiles

-          Start to develop WikiVet content which is directly relevant to Kenyan audience including short YouTube videos

-          Organise an exchange visit of Kenyan staff/students to the UK to learn how to develop e-learning and mobile content for WikiVet

 

Mobile Learning and Social Networks

Presentation by Dr Niall Winters given on 23rd May 2011 at the Mobile Vet event in Kenya.

Mobile Technologies Workshop - Mobile learning and social networks

View more presentations from niall

Our Blog Goes Mobile!

Fittingly for a blog about mobile phones, we have just enabled a mobile option on this site. This means that you access any page on this site using a mobile phone, you will get a customised display. Some screenshot examples are provided below:

 

Use of mobiles in Kenya by livestock farmers

Community Animal Health Workers and Mobiles - Video

Note dog barking in the background - just to prove this was filmed at a veterinary school!

Using Mobile Phone to Access Merck Vet Manual in Kenya

Mobile Workshop Day 3 - iHub

This was the last day of the 3 day workshop which was intended to give participants time to do some hands on experience. We were very fortunate that Tosh, Jessica and Bernard from the Nairobi iHub let us use their fantastic facilities and fast internet for the day.

In the session, David Aanensen took the group through designing a form, creating a digital version in a web browser using EpiCollect, downloading the form to an Android phone, collecting data using the form, uploading the data to the Google App engine server and viewing and editing the data using a web browser.

Photos of the workshop in the iHub:

Mobile Workshop Day 2

The Technology Kit!

Two participants using EpiCollect

The Lunch Venue = Vet Lab Golf Club

The Workshop Venue = Small Animal Clinic

Geeks on a Bench

Mobile workshop in Kenya Day 1 : Presentations and Photos

Wiki Vet Africa 23rd May 2011

E learning

E-learning at the University of Nairobi Vet School

• Feedback from workshop
• Suggested mobile solutions

Mobile workshop 23-24th May 2011 - Campus Location

Workshop update - Switch to new campus!

Please note that the venue has been switched to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Nairobi at the Upper Kabete campus which is on Kapenguria road off Wayiaki Way, about 14 Km to the Northwest of Nairobi CBD (see location map below). The event will be in the small animal clinic seminar room on campus.

The lunch venue - Vetlab Golf Club

The programme is attached below. Please note that the Monday is focussed on veterinary e-learning both through mobiles and online. The second day is mainly concerned with mobiles use for disease and population mapping and surveillance. There will be a final session on the Wednesday which will be a practical hands on the use off EpiCollect on mobiles - anybody wishing to attend this will need to book a place on Tuesday.


Lunch will be provided at the Veterinary Lab golf club close to the campus on both the Monday and Tuesday.


If possible, please bring your own laptop and android phone for use in the practical hands on sessions. There is no WiFi access on campus so you will need a Safaricom data card to access the internet.


Please contact Nick Short on nshort@rvc.ac.uk or mobile 00 44 7811 405653 if you need further information.



Location Map


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Programme

23rd May 2011 - New Learning Technologies

9.30	Arrival and Registration
10.00	Welcome (Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College)
10.10	Opening address (Professor Prof. Njenga Munene, Dean of Faculty)
10.20	Current application of ICT in Kenya (Dr Omwenga, University of Nairobi)
10.40	Veterinary use of e-learning in the UK (Dr Raymond Macharia, Royal Veterinary College)
11.00	Mobile learning and social networks (Dr Niall Winters, London Knowledge Lab)
11.20	Coffee
12.00	WikiVet in Africa (Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College)
12.20	New opportunities for e-learning at the Nairobi Veterinary School (Dr Mosiany Kisipan)
12.40	Future use of new technologies to enhance Kenyan education (Kenya Institute of Education)
13.00	Lunch
14.00	Hands on workshop to review a range of mobile learning packages and technologies... (Nick Short and Dr Niall Winters)

24th May - Mobile Surveillance

9.30	Arrival and Registration
10.00	Using EpiCollect for mobile surveillance (Dr David Aanensen, Imperial College)
10.20	Field based experience of the mobile surveillance in Kenya (Dr Gabriel Turhasha, Vetaid Kenya)
10.40	Mobile phones for One Health data collection (Eric Beda, SACIDS)
11.00	Integrating mobile systems for surveillance, reporting and information management by Veterinary Services in Kenya (Dr David Ojigo, Department of Veterinary Services)
11.20	Coffee
12.00	Working with mobiles in remote communities (CAHNET and Farm Africa)
12.20	International examples of mobile data collection (FAO Rome)
12.40	Closing remarks and review of workshop outputs (Professor Prof. Njenga Munene, Dean of Faculty)
13.00	Lunch
14.00	Hands on workshop to review a range of mobile surveillance technologies (Dr David Aanensen and Dr Gabriel Turhasha)