No livestock farmer in Kenya either practising intensive zero grazing or extensive pastoral system is new to East Coast Fever (ECF). It is a killer disease in cows, sheep and goats mainly spread by ticks.
The disease has for a long time been a major constraint to livestock production in East and Central Africa. East Coast Fever is a fatal disease especially in exotic animals that have not had prior exposure and in most cases result in death.
But even the zebu are not spared the wrath of ECF which is ranked as the leading tick borne disease that kills over a million animals annually resulting in economic losses to farmers.
For long, livestock farmers have struggled to keep this disease at bay with minimal success.
Tick control and curative treatment were the main control measures against the disease. But effective tick control in an area must be accompanied by strict legally enforceable movement controls which aren’t easy for individual farmers keen on preventing ECF outbreaks on their farms. In addition, most farmers report this disease in its late stages where treatment isn’t very effective as such the disease has remained endemic in all areas where the transmitter tick is present.
What is East Coast Fever?
East Coast Fever is a protozoan disease mainly spread by a certain type of tick that prefers areas around the ears.
This explains clinical course of ECF where the lymph nodes below the ears swell as an initial sign.
Some farmers brutally burn these swollen lymph nodes with hot metal as a way of treating the disease; this is a falsehood and there is no scientific explanation that such a practice will treat the animal. The disease can also be spread through reuse of needles across animals.
The common signs of the disease include loss of appetite, fever, soft cough accompanied by a difficulty in breathing, diarrhea, pale eyes and gums (aneamia), swollen lymph nodes especially those at the base of the ears where the culprit ticks prefer to attach. Sometimes the affected animal can walk in cycles when the disease affects the central nervous system.
Animals that have recovered from the disease develop some immunity but can remain careers. The disease normally takes an acute form and if not effectively and timely treated the animal can succumb in about four weeks.
There are several treatment regimes available in the market. However; treatment is only successful if started early enough before the disease advances.
Failure by farmers to notice the disease and call a veterinary doctor in time allows the disease ample time to progress to levels where curative treatment isn’t successful.
The existence of an effective treatment has found application in the current vaccine which is premised on a technique called Infect and Treat Method (ITM).
Owing to the complexity of the process of vaccine handling and administration, the ECF vaccine should only be administered by a veterinarian trained on how to administer and monitor the cattle thereafter the vaccine.
The good news is that well-coordinated scientific research has yielded an effective vaccine against ECF. The vaccine development has been in the pipeline for a while with organisations like Food and Agriculture Organisation, International Livestock Research Institute and other big players joining hands in its research funding, field trials and now roll-out.
The vaccine commonly known as “Muguga Cocktail” has been shown to be effective at rendering livelong immunity to correctly vaccinated animals.
All a farmer needs is just a single shot of this new vaccine to protect your precious livestock against this killer tick borne disease for life.
The vaccine has been in use for a while and the results are impressive. According to ILRI the use of vaccine among Tanzania pastoralists has reduced calve mortalities from a high of 80 per cent to only 2 per cent. It is projected that full adoption of this vaccine will greatly reduce livestock mortalities.
Diseases
The farmer has a critical role to play as the vaccine cannot be given to all animals, they must be in good health not showing any disease clinical signs, be of a certain age.
After vaccination, the farmer will be tasked with observing the animal the next 15 days for any ECF clinical signs which are to be reported immediately to a veterinary doctor.
Which animals cannot be vaccinated using the new ECF vaccine?
• Animals already showing clinical signs; such animals should treated first
• Young calves below one month
• Cattle in their last three months of pregnancy
• Levamisole which is a dewormer has been shown to react with the ECF vaccine it is therefore advised that a month be allowed after deworming with levamisole before the vaccine is administered.
• The vaccine shouldn’t be given to animals with poor body conditions.
• Animals suspected to be suffering from other diseases like lumpy skin disease or foot and mouth.
• Bulls being used to pull carts or ploughs.
The new vaccine comes in straws of ten doses; farmers with fewer animals are encouraged to look for other farmers in their neighbourhoods before calling a veterinary doctor in order to lower the professional service costs.
Diseases are also better controlled in this manner to greatly reduce chances of a farmer harbouring diseases and hence putting at risk neighbouring farms.
Nonetheless with your animals vaccinated; it is not the time to relax on your tick control programme.
You must continue spraying your animals as ticks don’t only spread ECF but many other diseases most of which don’t have an effective vaccine just yet.
The writer is a veterinary surgeon working with the Kenya Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Council – KENTTEC
