{"id":12754,"date":"2019-03-28T16:14:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T15:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/story\/tierisch-gesund-2\/"},"modified":"2022-08-02T13:52:47","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T11:52:47","slug":"healthier-animals-and-people","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/story\/healthier-animals-and-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy animals, healthier people"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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It\u2019s the \u201csmall\u201d rainy season in the north of Kenya: Our all-terrain vehicle has been stuck on the road from Isiolo to Merti for more than 30 minutes, following a cloud burst which transformed the road into a river. However, for the herders in the Horn of Africa the rain is a blessing. After several dry years, the 2018 \u201cbig\u201d rainy season from March to May delivered abundant rainfall and now \u2013 in December \u2013 it seems that the small rainy season will as well. The grazing lands have not been this green for a long time.<\/p>

Impending danger<\/h2>

However, rain harbours its own risks: Damp weather encourages certain diseases. For example, in April 2018, there was an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in our project region in Northern Kenya. Many animals died. Fortunately, there were fewer cases of the diseases spreading to humans than in the major epidemic of 2006\/7. Biovision supports two projects in Isiolo County to improve animal and human health. I am on my way to find out whether and how our cooperation with the pastoralists contributed to the relatively mild course of the outbreak.<\/p>

Pastoralists reliant on their own resources<\/h2>

The journey to the remote project region of Merti is a five-hour trip of some 200 kilometres on a road with a corrugated surface. There are no vets in the isolated villages around Merti and the herders are largely reliant on their own resources to keep their animals healthy. This is why Biovision,<\/p>

through its projects \u201cCamels for drought areas<\/a>\u201d and \u201cOne Health<\/a>\u201d supports a programme that trains local people on how to recognise key animal diseases. It focusses on diseases that can be transmitted to humans such as Rift Valley Fever and brucellosis. This type of disease transmission is also called zoonoses. To prevent such diseases, the pastoralists are taught to wear gloves before touching animals that are sick or about to give birth, to always boil milk before drinking it and to protect themselves from bites of the vector mosquitoes.<\/p>

Digital nomads<\/h2>

A network of animal disease reporters is being established as part of the project \u201cCamels for drought areas<\/a>\u201d. Thanks to good mobile phone coverage and a specially designed smartphone app, animal diseases can be reported immediately to government vets. The app has already passed its first serious test: One of the animal-disease reporters trained by our partner VSF-Suisse<\/a>* successfully alerted the authorities of a suspected case of Rift Valley Fever. Thanks to better communication, this early-warning system can help save lives and money, benefiting both animals and humans.<\/p>

\u201cOne Health\u201d<\/h2>

My visit to the pilot project in Merti clearly showed how the lives of the pastoralists and their animals are closely intertwined. If human health is to be improved, then the health of animals and the environment must also be improved. This holistic approach is called \u201cOne Health<\/a>\u201d and Biovision is using this principle in several of its project.<\/p>

* VSF: V\u00e9t\u00e9rinaires Sans Fronti\u00e8res Suisse<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastoralists in Isiolo County (Kenya) live cheek by jowl with their animals \u2013 a closeness that brings with it risks to human health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12747,"template":"","exclude-from-search":[],"newsletter":[],"region":[228],"projektthema":[469],"themen":[248],"class_list":["post-12754","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","region-sub-saharan-africa","projektthema-one-health-en","themen-agriculture-en"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-12 21:11:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"newsletter","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story\/12754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/story"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story\/12754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"exclude-from-search","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/exclude-from-search?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"newsletter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newsletter?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"projektthema","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/projektthema?post=12754"},{"taxonomy":"themen","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biovision.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themen?post=12754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}