Infection disease burdens in Kenya cattle: the IDEAL project
See the Ideal Project Website
IDEAL (Infectious Diseases of East African Livestock) is a new research project which began in September 2006 and will run for the next 5 years. The field component of the project is based in Kenya and we are working very closely with co-investigators at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, together with colleagues at the University of Pretoria, Institute for Animal Health and BioSS.
The project addresses the need for detailed knowledge of the burden infectious diseases impose on livestock, especially in developing countries. Such information is a prerequisite to informed decision making, resource allocation and prioritization of research.
However, there is growing evidence that disease impacts cannot be fully understood by reference to single infections in isolation. Instead, a holistic approach is required which considers both direct and indirect interactions between pathogens and the effects of these on the epidemiologies of infectious diseases of cattle and of the disease burdens they impose and, ultimately, of their impacts on human welfare. To date, no field study has adopted such a holistic approach.
This study will provide unique field data on total infectious disease burden in livestock and its relation to animal health and to both genotypic and phenotypic traits. It will also provide a platform for further research on diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, immune responses, pathogenesis, disease resistance and disease transmission.
The results will be important for fundamental scientific knowledge (providing unique data on the interactions between different infections and between infections and host traits), and for tropical animal health, and ultimately for human health and welfare in a region where people are directly and critically dependent on their livestock.
The project involves an intensive longitudinal field study of 500 Kenyan cattle from birth to 12 months old, providing data on as many as 80 infections, episodes of clinical disease and their sequelae, genetic polymorphisms, and markers of immune and nutritional status.
These data will be used to estimate attributable impacts for all infectious diseases found and also to design decision support criteria for subsequent development as diagnostic aids, and for statistical analysis of associations between different infections and their sequelae and genotype and phenotype. Specimens will be placed in a Biobank and linked to a comprehensive clinical, epidemiological and demographic database, providing a unique resource for future research.
The work is funded by the Wellcome Trust through a programme grant to the value of £1.7 million recently awarded to Prof. Mark Woolhouse and Dr Mark Bronsvoort, together with Dr Olivier Hanotte (ILRI) and Prof. Koos Coetzer (University of Pretoria). Key research staff working on the project include Dr Henry Kiara (ILRI) and Dr Magai Kaare and Dr Olga Tosas (both University of Edinburgh).