What is it about?
Amongst the diseases that affects livestock production in Kajiado county in Kenya, is brucellosis, which is a zoonoses (livestock disease that also affects people). The pastoralist community living in this area of Kenya, have some cultural practices including drinking raw milk and blood, consumption of raw meat and handling of birth products from livestock without protective measures to prevent them from acquiring these diseases from their livestock. In this region of Kenya, our research show that those pastoralist who were living in rural areas were at a higher risk of acquiring brucellosis because of the risk these types of practices as compered to those living in the peri-urban areas.
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Why is it important?
Universal health care is an important domain for the Kenyan government goal for achieving middle level economy by 2030. Therefore, knowledge on these risk practices which exposes communities to infections are important for shaping policy on public health service delivery, and hence an increased focus on public health education especially for such communities who are at a higher risk of exposure to disease.
Perspectives
This is the first of its kind publication that applies qualitative risk assessment and existing knowledge on presence of a zoonotic disease in pastoral systems in Kenya. Because brucellosis has been considered a neglected tropical disease, this study brings it back to the sphere of policy review so that governments can refocus allocation of resources to reduce its burden on communities.
Joshua Onono
University of Nairobi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Knowledge of pastoralists on livestock diseases and exposure assessment to brucellosis within rural and peri-urban areas in Kajiado, Kenya, F1000Research, November 2019, Faculty of 1000, Ltd.,
DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.20573.1.
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